Project Selection Models or Professional Autonomy?

Scholarship on managing professionals has emphasized the centrality of autonomy to industrial scientists in selecting research projects, but has proposed alternative selection models. This article describes the project selection processes in centralized corporate laboratories of high-technology industries, as reported by scientists and managers. It finds that project selection models are rarely utilized in industry because different projects have different levels of uncertainties and benefits. Scientists enjoy autonomy in selecting projects and deciding how to carry them out in industrial contexts. Research projects in corporate laboratories are supported when several elements—research choices made by scientists, demands conveyed by R&D and business managers, and constraints generated by funding, time, and resources—are aligned at a specific point in time. The process appears to be one of resource allocation rather than of project selection.