R&D project management standardization: an empirical research

Nowadays, it's increasingly important to reinforce R&D project management for obtaining enterprise's competitive advantage and development. The R&D project management standardization (PMS) is a significant method in the R&D project management, while it is a controversial issue and therefore, it's necessary to conduct this research. In this paper, based on sample data of some Chinese enterprises in electronic manufacture industry, we establish a conceptual model, use paired sample T-test, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis (SPSS 13) to analyze how the R&D PMS affect the R&D project performance. We find: the effect of standardized project management (SPM) on the R&D project performance differs with the enterprise scale, i.e.,SPM has no obvious facilitative influence on the project performance in the small enterprises, while SPM will increase the project performance in the large and medium enterprises; the intrinsic effect of the R&D PMS on the R&D project performance also differs with the enterprise scale. Finally we present research conclusions and limitations, and some countermeasures & proposals to reinforce the R&D SPM and thus improve the R&D project performance and promote enterprises unceasing development.