Significance of Dialectic Tensions in Transforming the Activity Systems of R&D Organizations across Cultures

Research and Development (R&D) Organizations in developing countries have sought to enhance their income generation capabilities by implementing best management practices collated from similar organizations in developed countries. Yet, the efforts of most were found to have been constrained. Using an organizational activity theory framework and a qualitative approach, based on interviews and workshops, an attempt is made to offer an understanding to this phenomenon. Historical analyses on the efforts of three R&D organizations in three countries are carried out from the perspectives of organizational climate and culture re-orientation in their activity systems. The outcome showed that the constraints are reflective of the organizations’ inabilities to identify and successfully manage new developments arising simultaneously in their activity systems during their best management practices implementation processes. Emergence of such new developments are a result of dialectic tension between the institutional and cultural elements in the management practices being implemented and those shaped by past history and engraved in the R&Ds organizational activity systems. By this understanding, effective strategies can be designed to facilitate the cross-cultural implementation of best management practices in R&D organizations.