Back to the future of industrial research: Early double-impact research at General Electric, AT&T and DuPont (1902–1948)

After the corporate research bloodbath that occurred in the 1990s, there was a need for firms to reinvent the management of corporate research. Although several explanations exist for how corporate research can fail, management science lacks models that can account for successful management. This paper addresses this gap by proposing such a model. Methodologically, this paper adopts a historical approach because it is particularly adaptable to a) assessing success on clearly evaluated facts at several time horizons and b) using rich, longitudinal, well-controlled data related to how management occurred in the past. This paper thus discusses the strategic role and inner functioning of corporate research at General Electric, AT&T Bell Labs and DuPont. These four cases demonstrate that successful corporate research can be attributed to the existence of simultaneous and bidirectional links between corporate research, strategy, new product development and the scientific community. These sixfold links constitute conditions for corporate research that are strategically and scientifically relevant. The results show that, contrary to widespread belief, 1) research is carefully integrated into the firm's strategy, and 2) GE, AT&T and DuPont provide examples of the fruitful interaction between fundamental research and new product development that leads to new products and scientific breakthroughs. The present paper thus contributes to the ongoing debates on the role and management of corporate research, particularly “double-impact” research.