TOWARDS A SYSTEM OF PERFORMANCE MEASURES FOR RESEARCH ACTIVITIES: NIKEM RESEARCH CASE STUDY

Although theoretical approaches to research and development (RD it deeply investigates the experience of an Italian contract research organisation in designing a system of performance measures for its research activities.The studied case is interesting for the following reasons: (i) it witnesses the increased interest by technology-intensive companies towards RD (ii) it enlightens the lack of consolidated practices capable of guiding the design of an appropriate performance measurement system; (iii) it elaborates a practical framework that can help fill this gap. In fact, a systematic approach for linking different contextual variables (i.e. the company's strategy, the type of R&D activity undertaken, the purpose of the measurement and the R&D unit's organisational structure) to the critical design choices (i.e. the choice of the performance indicators and the structure of the system) is suggested.

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