A longitudinal study of the

individual characteristics of
effective R&D project team
leaders
Robert T. Keller
Bauer College of Business, University of Houston, Houston, TX, 77204-6021. Keller@uh.edu

One hundred and eighteen project team leaders from five industrial research and develop-
ment (R&D) organizations were studied to determine the individual characteristics that
longitudinally predict leader effectiveness. Hypotheses generated from an interactionist
framework and the theory of purposeful work behavior (Barrick et al., 2013) found an
innovative orientation and job involvement to each predict 1-year later and 5-years later
job performance ratings by immediate supervisors. Low need for clarity predicted 1-year
later performance ratings. Self-esteem and job involvement each predicted 5-years later
profitability of the project, and job involvement predicted project speed to market. As
hypothesized, type of R&D work was found to be a moderator whereby an innovative ori-
entation predicted 1-year and 5-years later job performance primarily for research
projects, and a low need for clarity predicted 1-year later performance mainly for
research projects. Implications for models of interactionism and leader effectiveness in
R&D are discussed.

1. Introduction and motivations (Elkins and Keller, 2003; Burger

et al., 2013). While research effort has increased on

T he project team has become the vehicle of choice

by which research and development (R&D) and
other technology-driven and knowledge-based organ-
izations generate and deploy new products and proc-
esses because such teams feature flexibility, expertise
from multiple sources, and coordination at the team
level (DiTomaso et al., 2007; Gardner et al., 2012;
Perry-Smith and Mannucci, 2017). Key to the success
of such teams, however, is the effectiveness of the
project team leader who typically has to select, moti-
vate, coordinate, and lead scientists, engineers, and
other knowledge professionals who usually come
from disparate functional backgrounds, education,
the leadership styles and behaviors of effective project
team leaders (Wang et al., 2014; Peltokorpi and
Hasu, 2015), there is relatively less research on their
individual characteristics, such as personality traits
and job orientations, that hallmark the effective lead-
ers of project teams (Elkins and Keller, 2003; Sarin
and McDermott, 2003; Joshi et al., 2009; Colbert
et al., 2012; Yukl, 2012).
Further, a meta-analysis and qualitative review of
personality and leadership by Judge et al. (2002) high-
lighted the need for research on effective leaders that
uses accurate and objective performance measures in

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V 1
Robert T. Keller
real settings to overcome the effects of implicit lead-
ership theories whereby the preconceptions of the
traits of effective leaders influences the results (Epi-
tropaki et al., 2013). An advantage of studying only
R&D project team leaders (as opposed to other types
of team leaders) is that a focus on a specific sample
can result in more finely-grained and accurate results
that are based on outcomes that are important and spe-
cifically related to the organizations studied. Results
of this kind can have more soundly-based implica-
tions for theory building and practice. (Also see Bono
and Judge, 2004, Denis et al., 2012; and Mumford and
Fried, 2014).
A primary purpose of the present research was to
test and develop theoretical models that emphasize
the relationships between and interactions among the
individual characteristics of R&D project team lead-
ers and the work context. Models such as interaction-
ism (Terborg, 1981; Tett and Burnett, 2003; Judge
and Zapata, 2015) and the theory of purposeful work
behavior by Barrick et al. (2013) highlight the impor-
tance of studying the interactions of individual char-
acteristics of leaders and the type of work engaged in
by the team. Toward this end, and in order to better
understand how and why leaders are effective in the
R&D context (Avolio et al., 2009; Faraj and Yan,
2009; Le et al., 2011; Li et al., 2014; Wille and De
Fruyt, 2014), the type of R&D work was included as a
moderator. Prior research has found that research and
development work are significantly different, and that
effective leadership may vary across these two con-
texts (Allen, 1977; Elkins and Keller, 2003). An addi-
tional purpose of the present research was to reduce
the gap of empirical findings on the individual charac-
teristics of effective project team leaders, and to help
us better understand the individual, psychological
makeup of effective project team leaders.
2. Theoretical framework and
hypotheses
The present study used an interactionist framework
and the theory of purposeful work behavior by Barrick
et al. (2013) to specify the work context within which
selected individual characteristics may best predict
job performance and innovativeness for R&D project
team leaders. (Kenrick et al., 2002; Tett and Burnett,
2003; Pangallo et al., 2015). Interactionism proposes
that situations will vary in cues, rewards, punish-
ments, barriers, and opportunities, and that individuals
can both change and be changed by the environment,
depending on their personality traits, abilities, motiva-
tions, and psychological interpretations of each situa-
tion (Terborg, 1981; Tett and Burnett, 2003; Judge
2 R&D Management 00, 00, 2017
and Zapata, 2015). Barrick et al. (2013) posit that per-
sonality traits and individual characteristics interact
with the work context to result in work outcomes. In
the present study of R&D project team leaders, the
job context requires professional employees to work
on tasks that are high on task complexity and ambigu-
ity, lack structure, and require initiative, self-
direction, and independent thought (DiTomaso et al.,
2007). Hence, five individual characteristics were
chosen with these kinds of tasks in mind: self-esteem,
locus of control, need for clarity, an innovative orien-
tation, and job involvement. Job involvement is con-
ceptualized as the degree of involvement in the
present job and the importance of work in general,
sometimes called work centrality.
The literature on project management in general
not restricted to R&D has also identified traits of suc-
cessful project managers. These traits have included
flexibility, an action orientation, ability to learn from
the situation, credibility, creative problem solving,
and effective communication (Rees et al., 1996; Pinto
and Trailer, 1998; Andersen et al., 2004). The contri-
butions of the present research include a focus only on
R&D project team leaders so as to draw specific infer-
ences for their effectiveness, and the longitudinal
investigation of the effectiveness of individual charac-
teristics measured by scales that have been well-
validated in the literature.
Project team leaders in R&D environments often
have different requirements than other leadership
positions. Corporate R&D teams typically have to
take external and internal scientific and technological
information and transform it into technological inno-
vations in the form of new products, prototypes, and
processes that are eventually launched into the market
to become commercially successful innovations
(Gardner et al., 2012). To be effective R&D project
team leaders often have to perform boundary span-
ning and networking activities to a greater extent than
leaders in other environments (Fleming and Wagues-
pack, 2007; Robledo et al., 2012; Varella et al., 2012).
In addition to the main effects of the individual
characteristics themselves, an important distinction
was made between research versus development work
in the project as a moderator variable. In corporate
R&D work, research projects typically have a differ-
ent mission than development projects. Namely,
research projects usually have a longer time frame,
require the use of knowledge that often resides outside
the project team, and usually explore more radical
technological innovations when compared with the
more focused product development projects (Allen,
1977; Sheremata, 2000; Alexander and Van Knippen-
berg, 2014). Therefore, it is logical to expect an inno-
vative orientation to better predict project leader
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performance in research projects where unconven-
tional thinking that can generate new knowledge is
needed. Also, unpredictability and lack of structure
typically found in research projects suggest that a
lower need for clarity provides a better fit for the task
for the project team leader. In development projects,
however, innovations usually are incremental and not
radical, the technical knowledge usually resides
within the project team, and the focus tends to be on
task completion (Eisenhardt and Tabrizi, 1995). A
low need for clarity, therefore, would not be expected
to be a strong predictor for leader effectiveness in
development projects.
Project leader performance variables were selected
with rigor in mind whereby job performance ratings
were obtained 1-year and 5-years after the question-
naire data were collected from the immediate supervi-
sor of a project team leader. In addition, 5 years later
two actual, objective measures of project team per-
formance, profitability and speed to market, were
obtained from company records.
Self-esteem and an internal locus of control (LOC)
are two personality traits from the core self-evaluation
model (Judge et al., 1997) that have been predictive of
job performance. Self-esteem represents the perceived
value or worth of oneself. LOC describes the extent to
which individuals believe they control (internals), or
external factors control (externals), important aspects
of their lives. The core self-evaluation model posits
that self-esteem and LOC affect performance, behav-
ior, and attitudes at work because they affect
self-perceptions of worthiness, competence, and
capabilities (Judge et al., 1997, 1998; Judge and
Hurst, 2007; Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2009; Grant
and Wrzesniewski, 2010). Studies show that the
higher-order core self-evaluation trait predicts goal
attainment (Judge et al., 2005), performance across
occupations (Grant and Wrzesniewski, 2010), and
job-search intensity over time (Wanberg et al., 2005).
Although early reviews were mixed regarding self-
esteem (Brockner, 1979; Tharenou, 1979), a later
meta-analysis supported its positive effect on job per-
formance across jobs (Judge and Bono, 2001). More
recent studies also support this conclusion, and that
creative self-efficacy is related to creativity for R&D
professionals (e.g., Chen and Aryee, 2007; Richter
et al., 2012). Because of their perceived feelings of
self-worth, high self-esteem project team leaders can
better tolerate the frustrations and difficulties of R&D
work that is typically sporadic, protracted, and diffi-
cult to predict (Allen, 1977; Sheremata, 2000;
Alexander and Van Knippenberg, 2014).
H1: Self-esteem will positively predict the per-
formance of project team leaders.
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V R&D Management 00, 00, 2017
Project leader
Individuals with an internal LOC also tend to per-
form better, a relationship supported by a review of
the LOC literature (Spector, 1982) and by two meta-
analyses (Judge and Bono, 2001; Ng et al., 2006).
This relationship has also held across jobs and coun-
tries (Spector et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2010).
Research also suggests that internals have better job
attitudes (Lam and Schaubroeck, 2000), and make
better decisions than externals (Boone et al., 2005).
Project team leaders who are internals are likely to
take actions more readily to solve problems, and to
project a feeling of a confidence of support to the
members of the team who often look to the leader for
a positive attitude and bearing (Elkins and Keller,
2003).
H2: An internal locus of control will positively
predict the performance of project team leaders.
In order to capture the broad work-related interests
and motivations of the present sample of project team
leaders in the R&D context, personality traits were
also included that are complementary with and have
low overlap with self-esteem and LOC. One such trait
is a low need for clarity, whereby the ability to deal
well with unclear situations can enhance self-
competence when tasks are ambiguous and complex.
Highlighting the importance of this trait, perceived
ambiguity has been found to hinder management
decision making and performance (Powell et al.,
2006), as well as decision-making behavior in invest-
ment and gambling experiments (Venkatraman et al.,
2006). Studies have also found R&D professional
employees with a lower need for clarity to be better
performers and to have higher job satisfaction (Keller,
1989; Keller and Holland, 1978b; Simonton, 2003),
showcasing the value of this trait for project team
leaders in the present context where the work is usu-
ally complex and ambiguous with little structure
(DiTomaso et al., 2007).
H3: Need for clarity will negatively predict the
performance of project team leaders.
Another complementary personality trait is an
innovative orientation, or the ability to do things
differently, based on Kirton’s (1976) Adaption-
Innovation Inventory (KAI). This trait, sometimes
considered a cognitive style, is consistent with earlier
work on creativity that posited a creative or innovative
person as being able to transcend social conventions
and avoid conforming behavior (Stein, 1968; Maddi,
1976; Carnabuci et al., 2015). An adaptive orientation
is the other end of the continuum, and is an orientation
toward doing things better rather than innovatively.
The inventory asks the subject to imagine that he or
she has been asked to present, consistently and for a
3
Robert T. Keller
long time, a certain image of himself or herself to
others. The subject is then asked to rate the difficulty
of presenting such an image. Research shows that
R&D professional employees and knowledge workers
high on an innovative orientation have been more pro-
ductive in innovative outcomes and performance
(Keller and Holland, 1978a; Shalley et al., 2004),
higher in creativity as rated by supervisors (Farmer
et al., 2003), and, when they experience person-job fit,
to have better overall job performance. R&D project
team leaders with an innovative orientation can better
appreciate the need for creative and innovative
approaches often required by team members to solve
the problems associated with R&D work.
H4: An innovative orientation on the KAI will
positively predict the performance of project team
leaders.
Job involvement is an individual characteristic that
fits well with the task motivation aspect of interaction-
ist models, can complement personality traits, and has
been of interest in predicting the performance and
innovativeness of scientists and engineers and the for-
mulation of work behavior theories. For example,
Barrick et al. (2013) defined experienced meaningful-
ness as the perceived significance or meaning one
derives from work. They posited meaningfulness as a
key factor in their model of purposeful work behavior
that integrates personality and job characteristics, and
meaningfulness is a construct with similarities to job
involvement. Because their work is of high complex-
ity and professional importance, job involvement has
been found to be a predictor of performance for R&D
professionals (Keller, 1997), as well as for employees
in general in Cooper-Hakim and Viswesvaran’s
(2005) meta-analysis. Cooper-Hakim and Viswes-
varan equated job involvement with job commitment,
and saw the construct as tapping how much a job can
satisfy an employee’s present needs. In the present
study, job involvement is defined as the widely-used
Lodahl and Kejner (1965) conceptualization of the
degree of involvement in the present job and the
importance of work in general, sometimes called
work centrality (Paullay et al., 1994; Brown, 1996).
Project team leaders with high job involvement would
actively interact with team members and pay attention
to the important leader behaviors needed to achieve
the innovative outcomes of the team.
H5: Job involvement will positively predict the
performance of project team leaders.
Reviews of the leadership literature have highlighted
the need to better understand why certain individual
characteristics are relevant to leader effectiveness, and
contextual factors as moderators have been identified
4 R&D Management 00, 00, 2017
as potential explanatory variables (Judge et al.,
2002; Bono and Judge, 2004; Avolio et al., 2009;
Barrick et al., 2013; Li et al., 2014; Perry-Smith and
Mannucci, 2017). In particular, Judge and Zapata
(2015) and Barrick et al. (2013) have proposed that
personality traits of the individual can initiate a pur-
poseful striving that interacts with the work context
to result in an experienced meaningfulness. Experi-
enced meaningfulness can then influence job out-
comes. In prior research on R&D teams it has been
found that the type of work the project team engages
in, such as research versus development, can be an
important moderator between an independent vari-
able such as individual characteristics and dependent
variables such as project team performance (Allen,
1977; Keller, 1992; Elkins and Keller, 2003; Faraj
and Yan, 2009; Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013).
Research projects typically have had a different mis-
sion than development projects in corporate R&D
organizations. Research projects usually have a lon-
ger time frame, require the use of scientific and tech-
nological information that often resides outside the
project team, and generally deal with more radical
technological innovations that go beyond existing
knowledge than do the more focused, incremental
innovations of product development projects
(Allen, 1977; Sheremata, 2000; Alexander and Van
Knippenberg, 2014). It is therefore logical to expect
an innovative orientation to better predict project
leader performance in research projects where
unconventional thinking that can generate new
knowledge is needed. Further, the lack of structure
and the unpredictability usually found in research
projects indicate that a lower need for clarity pro-
vides a better fit for the task for the project team
leader. In development projects, however, innova-
tions tend to be of an incremental rather than a radi-
cal nature, most of the scientific and technological
information tends to reside within the project team,
and the focus tends to be on task completion
(Eisenhardt and Tabrizi, 1995). Hence, a low need
for clarity would not be expected to be a strong pre-
dictor for leader effectiveness in development proj-
ects. It is therefore predicted that type of R&D work
will be a moderator of two of the independent varia-
bles with project leader performance.
H6: An innovative orientation and a low need for
clarity each will be better predictors in research
projects than in development projects.
The research model presented in Figure 1 depicts the
predictor variables, research vs. development project
work as a moderator, and the longitudinal outcome
variables that are specifically relevant to the perform-
ance and effectiveness of R&D project team leaders.
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V

Figure 1. Research Model.
3. Method
3.1. Sample and procedures
The participants were all 118 project team leaders
who were asked to participate. These leaders all had
projects that lasted the 5 years of the study, and had
job and project performance data that were provided
by the companies. Fifteen other leaders had their pro-
ject terminated during the time of the study, did not
have performance data provided, and were not
included in this study. The participants were from five
industrial R&D organizations engaged in the indus-
tries of energy, petrochemicals, scientific instruments,
semiconductors, and aerospace. The sample was 92%
male and had an average age of 39. All participants
held a baccalaureate degree, and 83% held a graduate
degree. The average team size was 8.24, and all teams
were face-to-face. The same data collection proce-
dures were used in each of the five R&D organiza-
tions. All participants completed the questionnaires at
their organization’s work site. Only the researcher
was present, and participants were guaranteed confi-
dentiality. The organizations only received summary
information.
3.2. Measures
Individual characteristics were measured with five-
point response scales. Rosenberg’s (1965) 10-item
scale (a 5 0.85; e.g., “I take a positive attitude toward
myself”) measured self-esteem with a response scale
of “very false” to “very true.” The 11-item Valecha
(1972) version of the Rotter (1966) scale (a 5 0.83;
e.g., “What happens to me is my own doing”)
assessed locus of control with a response scale of
“very false” to “very true.” Higher scores indicated an
internal control. The 32-item Kirton (1976)
Adaptation-Innovation Inventory (a 5 0.88; e.g.,
“Would sooner create than improve”) measured an
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Project leader
innovative orientation with a response scale of “very
easy” to “very difficult.” The subject was asked to
imagine that he or she has been asked to present, con-
sistently and for a long time, a certain image of him-
self or herself to others. The subject was then asked to
rate the difficulty of presenting such an image. A six-
item scale (a 5 0.80; e.g., “How important is it to you
to know, in detail, how you are supposed to do a
job?”) by Ivancevich and Donnelly (1974) assessed
need for clarity with a response scale of “not
important” to “very important.” Job involvement was
tapped via six items selected from the Lodahl and
Kejner (1965) instrument based on the psychometric
analysis of Hunt et al. (1981). These items focused on
the importance of work in general and one’s involve-
ment in the present job, with a sample item of “The
most important things that happen to me involve my
work.” The response scale ranged from “strongly dis-
agree” to “strongly agree,” and the coefficient alpha
was 0.80.
For job performance, ratings were obtained 1-
year and 5-years after the questionnaire data were
collected, from the department manager who was
the immediate supervisor of a project team leader.
(All the project team leaders were still with their
same teams for the 1-year and 5-years later perform-
ance ratings.) Five criteria were rated similar to
those used by the organizations internally: quality of
performance, quantity of performance, ability to
get along with others, dependability, and total per-
formance. A five-point response scale was used that
ranged from “very low” to “very high.” An explora-
tory factor analysis of the five performance criteria
at both time points revealed one clear factor with an
eigenvalue greater than 1.0 before rotation (SPSS
22, with principal components analysis, maximum
likelihood extraction, and varimax rotation). There-
fore, these items were summed and called job per-
formance (a’s 5 0.88 and 0.84 for 1-year and 5-year
5
Robert T. Keller
time lags, respectively). The 1-year and 5-year time
lags were used because of the time needed for the
leadership and interpersonal processes in R&D teams
to transform scientific and technological information
into innovations (Sheremata, 2000; Harrison et al.,
2002; Sturman et al., 2005), and because these collec-
tion times corresponded with the actual annual per-
formance reviews of the project team leaders by the
department managers in their organizations.
Because supervisory performance ratings are
prone to judgmental biases and errors (Cascio and
Aquinis, 2011; Roberson et al., 2008; Sturman et al.,
2005), and R&D project team leadership is complex,
dynamic, and multidimensional in nature (Allen,
1977; Sheremata, 2000; DiTomaso et al., 2007),
objective indicators of the project leader’s team per-
formance were also obtained. Five years after the
individual characteristics, moderator, and control
variables were measured, two actual, objective
measures of project team performance were
obtained from company records for the 52 project
teams, almost all development projects, that had a
new product that made it to market. (Sixty-six
teams, almost all research projects, did not have a
product that made it to market.) The 5-year time lag
was needed because of the considerable amounts of
time, effort, and resources needed to move a techno-
logical innovation through a firm and launch it as a
new product in the market (Allen, 1977; Sheremata,
2000; Alexander and Van Knippenberg, 2014).
These measures were determined by discussions
with management and are similar to what they used
internally to evaluate their firm’s R&D efforts that
reached the market.
The first measure of success in the market was
profitability, or the average annual contribution to
company profit for each new product relative to the
average profitability of all new products in its firm.
This profit measure was determined by subtracting
variable costs from the sales revenue for each product.
Fixed costs such as depreciation or long-term debt
payments were not considered (Higgins, 2012). Each
product’s average annual profitability was divided by
the average profitability of all the new products in its
firm because of the diversity of industries represented
in the sample.
The other measure of success for projects that
made it to market was speed to market, because of the
importance of first-mover advantage (Semadeni and
Anderson, 2010; Yang et al., 2015; Hsiao et al.,
2017). This variable was measured by the number of
months needed to bring a product to market relative to
the development time of all new products in its firm
(reverse scored). The start of the development time
was measured from the first meeting of the project
6 R&D Management 00, 00, 2017
team and ended when the product was launched into a
market for sale (Eisenhardt and Tabrizi, 1995). The
time to market in months for each product was
divided by the average time to market for all the new
products in its firm because speed to market differed
significantly across the relatively fast cycle industries
of semiconductor and scientific instruments compared
with that of the energy, aerospace, and petrochemical
industries.
One moderator and four control variables also were
measured at the time that the leadership variables
were measured. Type of R&D work was measured as a
moderator by a one-item question that asked the pro-
ject team leader to classify the team’s work as one of
the following: basic or non-mission research to create
broad-based new knowledge; applied or mission-
oriented research that creates new knowledge for
application to a particular problem; new product
development that takes existing knowledge and pro-
duces a new product; technical service, or minor mod-
ification of an existing product. Because there were
only two basic research projects, basic and applied
research projects were combined and called research
projects (n 5 41). Further, because there were only
two technical service projects, new product develop-
ment and technical service projects were combined
and called development projects (n 5 77). Because
the only projects, save for one, that made it to market
5 years later were development projects, the modera-
tor hypothesis (Hypothesis 6) could not be tested with
speed to market or profitability, but only with the 1-
year and 5-years later job performance ratings. It is
usually the case that research projects in the organiza-
tions studied would not have a product launched in
the market within the 5-year time frame of the present
study.
Three control variables often used in the literature
on R&D professionals were chosen. Education, ten-
ure in the company, and scientist or engineer occupa-
tional background have been found to be related to the
motivation and leadership of R&D professional
employees (Allen, 1977; Elkins and Keller, 2003;
DiTomaso et al., 2007). Company membership was
included as a control because the five companies
came from different industries. The weighted effects
coding procedure described by Cohen, et al. (2003)
was used to create company membership as it is the
appropriate coding procedure when dealing with
more than two groups (Hardy, 1993).
4. Results
Descriptive statistics and correlations of the variables
are reported in Table 1. The five individual
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 Project leader

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations

Variable M S.D. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Self esteem 42.54 5.30 –

2. Locus of control (internal) 28.70 5.37 0.39** –
3. Kirton Adoption—Innovation Index 97.42 11.80 0.29** 0.03 –
4. Need for clarity 20.11 5.12 20.15 20.12 20.23** –
5. Job involvement 21.25 3.90 0.17* 0.11 0.09 0.06 –
6. Company tenurea 9.91 4.15 20.05 20.04 20.03 20.05 20.01 –
7. Company membershipb 2.89 0.72 0.03 0.18* 0.11 20.17* 0.04 0.08 –
8. Education c 2.66 0.54 0.04 20.10 0.08 20.11 0.11 20.14 0.10
9. Scientist/engineerd 1.43 0.41 20.09 20.05 20.10 20.08 20.04 0.03 0.19*
10. Type of R&De 1.61 0.42 20.03 20.04 20.27** 0.12 0.04 0.06 0.18*
11. Job performance rating—1 year later 17.89 4.26 0.24** 0.11 0.40** 20.27** 0.38** 0.03 0.10
12. Job performance rating—5 years later 18.21 4.31 0.35** 0.18* 0.38** 20.13 0.36** 0.01 0.11
13. Profitability 1.00 0.79 0.38** 0.13 0.12 0.06 0.38** 0.01 0.01
14. Speed to market 1.00 0.76 0.18* 0.12 0.08 0.19* 0.35** 20.02 0.01

Variable 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

1. Self esteem
2. Locus of control (internal)
3. Kirton Adoption-Innovation Index
4. Need for clarity
5. Job involvement
6. Company tenurea
7. Company membershipb
8. Educationc –
9. Scientist/engineerd 20.16* –
10. Type of R&De 20.10 0.28** –
11. Job performance rating—1 year later 0.11 20.03 0.02 –
12. Job performance rating—5 years later 0.14 20.02 0.02 0.47** –
13. Profitability 0.09 20.13** 0.18* 0.39** 0.38** –
14. Speed to market 0.05 20.05 0.22* 0.29** 0.32** 0.11 –
Note: N 5 118 project team leaders, except for profitability and speed to market data where N 5 52 project teams.
a
The coefficient of variation (standard deviation divided by the mean) was used for company tenure.
b
Company membership was a weighted effects coding per the procedure in Cohen, et al. (2003).
c
Education was coded as follows: B.S. 5 1; M.S. 5 2; Ph.D. 5 3.
d
Coded as scientist 5 1; engineer 5 2.
e
Type of R&D was coded: research projects (n 5 41) 5 1; development projects (n 577) 5 2.
*p < 0.05.
**p < 0.01.

characteristics measures had a median absolute inter-
correlation of .15, a maximum correlation of 0.39, and
a maximum variance inflation factor of 3; hence, mul-
ticollinearity was not a severe problem that would
preclude interpretation of the analyses (Kutner et al.,
2004). A confirmatory factor analysis (Amos 22)
using a covariance matrix of the items for the five
individual characteristics as predictors suggested that
the five-factor solution provided a good fit
(v268 5 272.08, p < 0.01; GFI 5 0.95; CFI 5 0.95;
RMSEA 5 0.06). Because company membership as a
control variable was not significantly related to any of
the dependent variables it was deemed acceptable to
pool the data across the five R&D organizations.
Regression results using clustered robust standard
errors (Stata 13) for 1-year later and 5-years later job
performance ratings for the project team leaders are
reported in Table 2, while Table 3 reports the regres-
sion results for the 5-years later variables of project
team profitability and speed to market. These results
are used to test Hypotheses 1 to 6. Full-equation
standardized regression coefficients (bs) are reported

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V R&D Management 00, 00, 2017 7
Robert T. Keller

Table 2. Regression results for project team leader job performance ratings
One-year later Five-years later

Variable b DR2 F b DR2 F

Control
Company tenure 0.03 0.00 1.11 0.03 0.00 1.37
Company membership 20.04 0.00 1.21 20.03 0.00 1.29
Education 0.04 0.00 1.18 0.10 0.00 1.61
Scientist/engineer 20.05 0.00 1.30 0.00 0.00 1.49
Predictor
Self-esteem 0.02 0.00 0.97 0.15 0.01 1.80
Locus of control (internal) 0.04 0.00 1.22 0.09 0.00 1.66
Kirton Adoption-Innovation Index (A1) 0.37** 0.05 5.13** 0.35** 0.05 5.05**
Need for clarity (A2) 20.24** 0.04 4.08** 20.05 0.00 1.42
Job involvement 0.40** 0.10 9.96** 0.33** 0.05 4.97**
Moderator
Type R&D (B1) 0.25** 0.04 4.05** 0.23** 0.05 3.92**
A1 3 B 1 20.19* 0.04 3.11** 20.21* 0.04 3.33**
A2 3 B 1 0.18* 0.04 2.96** 0.14 0.01 1.77
Overall F 9.74** 5.07**
R2 0.36 0.30
Adjusted R2 0.29 0.22
Note: N 5 118 project team leaders. b is the standardized regression coefficient. The DR2 and F-values were derived from hierarchi-
cal regression analyses. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.

for all predictor, control, and moderator variables. In
Table 2 the moderator analyses were conducted with
the interaction term entered last. A series of hierarchi-
cal regression analyses were conducted separately to
determine the unique variance explained (DR2) by
each predictor, moderator, and control variable.
Namely, each variable was tested with two regression
analyses: one without the variable, and one with the
variable added as the last step of the regression analy-
ses. In Tables 2 and 3 the DR2 results are reported for

Table 3. Regression results for 5-years later project team profitability and speed to market
Profitability Speed to market

Variable b DR2 F b DR2 F

Control
Company tenure 0.03 0.00 1.17 20.02 0.00 0.88
Company membership 20.07 0.00 1.55 20.06 0.00 1.50
Education 0.08 0.01 1.73 0.05 0.00 1.44
Scientist/engineer 20.02 0.00 0.96 20.07 0.00 1.67
Predictor
Self-esteem 0.30** 0.05 6.08** 0.06 0.00 1.61
Locus of control (internal) 0.01 0.00 1.02 0.10 0.01 1.95
Kirton Adoption-Innovation index 0.10 0.01 1.75 0.15 0.01 2.02
Need for clarity 0.06 0.00 1.53 0.17* 0.04 2.39*
Job involvement 0.36** 0.06 6.50** 0.36** 0.07 7.12**
Overall F 8.10** 8.41**
R2 0.31 0.33
Adjusted R2 0.23 0.25
Note: N 5 52 project teams. b is the standardized regression coefficient. The DR2 and F-values were derived from hierarchical regres-
sion analyses. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01.

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V
 Project leader

the outcome variables with the related F values

derived from the hierarchical regression analyses.
As shown in Table 2, an innovative orientation,
low need for clarity, and job involvement each pre-
dicted higher 1-year later job performance ratings for
the project team leaders, while an innovative orienta-
tion and job involvement predicted higher 5-years
later job performance. The results in Table 3 report
that self-esteem and job involvement each predicted
5-years later project team profitability, and job
involvement predicted 5-years later speed to market.
Interestingly, a high need for clarity predicted speed
to market, which was opposite in direction to what
was predicted. Locus of control, however, did not pre-
dict any of the dependent variables. These results are
supportive of Hypotheses 1, 3, 4, and 5.
Hypothesis 6 predicted that the type of R&D work
done by the project team will be a moderator such that
an innovative orientation will be a better predictor in Figure 2. The relationship between an innovative orientation and
research projects than in development projects, and 1-year later performance for research and development projects.
that low need for clarity will be a better predictor in The numbers 85.62 and 109.22 are one standard deviation above
and below the mean (97.42) for the innovative orientation scale.
research projects than in development projects. As [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
hypothesized significant moderator effects are shown
in Table 2 for 1-year later performance for both an Barrick et al. (2013) because the R&D context
innovative orientation and low need for clarity, while requires leaders to work on complex and ambiguous
for 5-years later performance a moderator effect is
tasks that often lack structure (DiTomaso et al., 2007;
shown only for an innovative orientation and not for a
Gardner et al., 2012). By being highly involved in
need for clarity. A further investigation of the signifi-
their job with an innovative orientation, and able to
cant moderator effects was conducted by running sepa-
tolerate low job clarity with the fortitude of feelings
rate sets of regressions for subgroups of research
of high self-worth, these leaders can meet the needs of
projects and development projects. Per Aguinis and
their task context and help their teams to generate the
Gottfredson (2010), and Cohen et al. (2003), plots were
made for one standard deviation above and below the
respective means of the within group regression equa-
tions for an innovative orientation and low need for
clarity, and the 1 and 5-years later performance ratings
for the project team leaders. Per Hypothesis 6, Figures
2–4 depict that an innovative orientation predicted 1-
year and 5-years later performance primarily for
research projects, and a low need for clarity predicted
1-year later performance mainly for research projects.

5. Discussion

What are the individual characteristics that hallmark

effective R&D project team leaders? Who are the pro-
ject team leaders that provide a good fit with the job
context? The present study provides some important
evidence that effective project team leaders in R&D
tend to have high involvement in their jobs, an inno-
vative orientation, a low need for clarity, and high Figure 3. The relationship between an innovative orientation and
self-esteem. Taken together these results are support- 5 years later performance for research and development projects.
The numbers 85.62 and 109.22 are one standard deviation above
ive of an interactionist framework (Judge and Zapata, and below the mean (97.42) for the innovative orientation scale.
2015) and the theory of purposeful work behavior by [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

C 2017 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

V R&D Management 00, 00, 2017 9
Robert T. Keller
Figure 4. The relationship between a need for clarity and 1-
year later performance for research and development projects.
The numbers 14.99 and 25.23 are one standard deviation above
and below the mean (20.11) for the need for clarity scale. [Col-
our figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]
technologically innovative outcomes of new proto-
types, products and processes. These findings are an
important contribution to the development of interac-
tionist models that emphasize the importance of inter-
actions between a leader’s individual characteristics
and the work context to understand outcomes such as
job and project team performance.
The inclusion of the important moderator of
research versus development projects provides addi-
tional explanatory power by statistically demonstrat-
ing the interaction between individual characteristics
of the leaders with the work context of the R&D pro-
ject team, and helping to answer how and why leader
effectiveness occurs in R&D project teams. These
moderator results are an important contribution to the
development of the Barrick et al. (2013) model of pur-
poseful work behavior and an interactionist frame-
work in that the joint and interactive effects of
personality and situational factors in the work context
provided improved theoretical power for understand-
ing leader behavior and performance. The results for
1-year and 5-years later job performance ratings
showed an innovative orientation, and for 1-year later
performance a low need for clarity, to each predict
leader effectiveness better for research projects than
for development projects. These results support the
earlier literature in corporate R&D that highlights
the important differences in mission and tasks
between research and development projects (Allen,
1977; Sheremata, 2000; Alexander and Van Knip-
penberg, 2014). Because research projects usually
10 R&D Management 00, 00, 2017
require a longer time frame to bring results, typi-
cally require the use of scientific and technological
information that has to be imported into the project
team from the outside, and generally engage in
work on radical innovations that tend to be novel in
nature, an innovative orientation would be well-
suited to research projects.
Research projects also tend to lack structure and pre-
dictability, while development projects usually focus
on the shorter-run task completion of more predictable
incremental innovations (Allen, 1977; Sheremata,
2000; Alexander and Van Knippenberg, 2014). Hence,
a low need for clarity tends to meet the demands of
research projects to a greater degree than for develop-
ment projects. These results are important for theory
building about leader effectiveness because they pro-
vide more direct, finely-grained results on specific indi-
vidual characteristics with an important work context
moderator whereby models such as interactionism and
purposeful work behavior can be tested and developed.
Contrary to the hypothesized direction, a high need
for clarity predicted speed to market, which occurred
only in the 52 development projects that had a new
product that made it to market. While a post hoc
explanation, it is quite possible that the task focus and
attention to detail that may accompany a high need
for clarity are helpful in driving a product through the
internal barriers of the company to a launch in the
market (Sheremata, 2000; Alexander and Van Knip-
penberg, 2014). In addition, the only predictor that
was significant for job performance ratings at 1-year
later but not 5-years later (Table 2) was need for
clarity. It may be that with four more years of experi-
ence with the project team’s members and work the
leader may have more clarity, and hence a low need
for clarity is less of a salient variable for leadership.
Based on these results the role of need for clarity in
R&D team leadership is deserving of additional,
future research.
The main hypothesis that was not supported at all is
Hypothesis 2, that an internal locus of control will
positively predict the performance of project team
leaders. LOC may have had shared variance with
some of the other predictors such as job involvement
such that the significant correlation between LOC and
5-years later job performance (Table 1) was reduced
to non-significance in the regression analyses (Tables
2 and 3). Overlap with the other predictors may also
be the reason for why LOC was not a predictor of any
of the leader performance measures in the regression
analyses.
The design of the present study meets some of the
requests of Judge et al. (2002) and Avolio et al. (2009)
for more rigorous research that can deepen our theo-
retical understanding of why certain personality traits
C 2017 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
V

are predictive of leader effectiveness. To wit, the pres-
ent study was conducted in the real settings of five
industrial R&D organizations with longitudinal,
separate-source performance ratings that can be
expected to be accurate indicators of leader effective-
ness. In addition, two longitudinal, objective measures
of project team performance were obtained that go
beyond the perceptual ratings by department manag-
ers. Hence, the results are less likely to be affected by
implicit theories of leader effectiveness or common
method bias (Epitropaki et al., 2013). The use of type
of R&D work as a moderator helps us to better under-
stand why certain traits, such as an innovative orienta-
tion and a low need for clarity, are beneficial for
leaders in research projects because of the greater
need for innovative ideas and tolerance for unstruc-
tured, ambiguous work in such projects. These results
allow for a more finely-grained analysis for building
an interactionist model for R&D project team leader
effectiveness.
A limitation of the present study is that it did not
include any of the Big Five personality traits such as
openness to experience, conscientiousness or extra-
version that have been related to leadership (Judge
et al., 2002; De Vries, 2012); hence, such variables
are good candidates for future research on project
team leaders. Also, the project performance variables
of profitability and speed to market could only be
tested with the 52 development projects that had a
new product that made it to market which was a mini-
mum sample size for the analyses. Other project per-
formance variables such as new technologies
developed and the professional improvement of team
members should be considered in future research. As
a field study over 5 years with five R&D organizations
from different industries, the project teams that par-
ticipated were ongoing with different start dates and
levels of progress and completion. These conditions
induce some variability into comparisons across the
project teams. These limitations may reduce the
robustness of the inferences that can be drawn from
the present data. A future field study could provide
replication of the present results, while a laboratory
experiment may have greater consistency across the
teams that are lead.
The present study does suggest some important
normative implications for the selection of project
team leaders in R&D and perhaps other knowledge-
driven organizations that use project teams such as
consulting, construction, law and accounting. Those
who see work as central and important to their lives,
that is, high job involvement, are potentially a good
candidate for a project team leadership position
because leaders with high job involvement would
tend to actively work with team members and pay
C 2017 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
V R&D Management 00, 00, 2017
Project leader
attention to the important leader behaviors needed to
achieve the innovative outcomes of the team. Com-
plementary to job involvement is an innovative orien-
tation to work, especially for research projects,
because leaders with an innovative orientation can
better appreciate the need for creative and innovative
approaches often required by team members to solve
the problems associated with R&D work. Those with
high self-esteem may be effective project team leaders
because their perceived feelings of self-worth allow
them to better tolerate the frustrations and difficulties
of R&D work that is typically sporadic, protracted,
and difficult to predict. And, a low need for clarity can
be of value for project team leaders in the R&D con-
text where the work is usually complex and ambigu-
ous with little structure.
Going forward, the present results help to build our
theories about effective leaders and leadership in
knowledge organizations that rely on project teams as
an important form of work organization, and to guide
R&D management in the selection of these leaders.
Perhaps in the future, research such as the present
study can help to build a selection battery of individ-
ual characteristics for project team leaders.
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Robert T. Keller is the Baker Hughes Professor of
Business Administration at the University of Hous-
ton. He holds the Ph.D. degree in management from
The Pennsylvania State University. He has held
administrative positions with Westinghouse Electric
Corporation and Westvaco Corporation before he
pursued the Ph.D. degree. He previously was at Loui-
siana State University as Professor of Management
and Chair of the Department of Management.
Professor Keller has authored over 130 journal
articles and professional articles. His research on
technological innovation in R&D organizations has
been supported by the National Science Foundation,
the Center for Innovation Management Studies at
Lehigh University, Shell Oil Foundation, and the
German Marshall Fund. He is currently on the edito-
rial boards of IEEE Transactions on Engineering
Management, Journal of High Technology Manage-
ment Research, and The Leadership Quarterly, and
he has twice been a member of the editorial review
board of the Academy of Management Journal. He is
Past Chair of the Technology and Innovation Man-
agement Division of the Academy of Management, a
member of the Academy Council, and a charter
member of the Academy of Management’s Journals
Hall of Fame.
Professor Keller has conducted research and lectured
on the management of technology in the United
States, Germany, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and
Mexico, and he has served as an expert witness on
management and organization design before state
legislative committees. His current research interests
include international technology transfer, cross-
national factors and technological innovation, and
cross-functional R&D project groups for speed-to-
market.
C 2017 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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