JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT INFORMATICS AND SMART TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, APRIL 2022

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Competency Development Workshop for Bridge
Managers in Global R&D Projects
Nawarerk Chalarak, and Naoshi Uchihira
Abstract—Competency development is a practice for developing specific competencies for particular purposes toimprove job performance of individuals. The manager competency development becomes more important as managers
are facing more challenges and higher expectations under the increasing complexity of global R&D projects. This study
aims at designing a competency development workshop for bridge managers who facilitate research collaboration in
global R&D projects. This study proposes a workshop method to gain advantages of intensive discussion and knowledge
sharing between participants to develop competencies. The workshop consists of a case scenario, group discussion, andcompetency assessment questionnaire. Three participants indicated differences in their prioritization by using theanalytic hierarchy process to compare priority of competencies between before and after the discussion session. The
results suggest that participation in the workshop may influence the opinion of managers about the importance ofdifferent competencies. This activity could be considered as a method for managers to develop crucial competencies forfacilitating global R&D projects.
Index Terms— global R&D project, bridge manager, competency development, workshop.

I. INTRODUCTIONGLOBAL R&D projects become more complex anddifficult to manage as they involve multidisciplinary
research fields and the advancement of technology.
Research activities in the project require intensive care frommanagement. R&D bridge managers (BMs) are employed tobridge the gaps between headquarters and foreign R&D
teams in global R&D projects. BMs face difficulties whenfacilitating research collaboration between two sides.
Specific competencies are needed for BMs to solve
difficulties and to work effectively in the projects.
Especially, in the increasing business competition, BMs help
their company to achieve strategic goals by possessing
competencies to solve difficulties in global R&D projects.
However, competency development takes time, and the
managers cannot catch up with the growing demand of
global R&D management. Traditionally, the competency
development of BMs takes some time and highly relies onon-the-job experience.
The project manager competency development framework(PMCDF) developed by the project management institute(PMI) is an established and well-known framework ofcompetency development for managers for a broad
application [1]. This kind of framework provides definition,assessment, and development of competency. Organizations
can adapt PMCDF to suit their requirements andorganizational context. The organizations can utilize aworkshop based on PMCDF to assess existing competencies
and develop the required competencies of managers [2, 3]. It
is possible to apply the competency development workshop
in the context of global R&D projects to assess and develop
the competencies of BMs.
Nawarerk Chalarak is with the Graduate School of Advanced Scienceand Technology, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology(JAIST), Nomi, Ishikawa, 923-1292 Japan, Corresponding author e-mail:chalarak@jaist.ac.jp.
Naoshi Uchihira is with the School of Knowledge Science, Japan
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), Nomi, Ishikawa,
923-1292 Japan e-mail: uchihira@jaist.ac.jp.

This paper aims to propose a competency development
method for BMs by using workshop in which participants
engage in an intensive discussion about crucial
competencies for facilitating global R&D projects. Thismethod highlights the importance of individual interaction to
exchange knowledge. Based on the analytic hierarchy
process (AHP) results, we found that the BM’s decisions
regarding importance of competencies for solving
difficulties in facilitating global R&D projects have changed
after participated in the workshop.
II. BRIDGE MANAGER COMPETENCIES FOR FACILITATINGGLOBAL R&D PROJECTS
A. Difficulties in Global R&D Projects
Multinational companies establish R&D subsidiaries inforeign countries to gain access to sources of specialized
knowledge and expand their markets. The foreign R&D
subsidiaries conduct research in collaboration with
headquarters in the home country to achieve strategic goalsof the organization. Researchers from different organizations
work together in global R&D projects to exchange
knowledge and information intensively. R&D investigates
into a particular topic in order to improve understanding of
established knowledge, especially basic research which
acquires new knowledge without a predefined goal or target
application of the knowledge [4]. R&D projects are prone tothe uncertainty of outcomes and complexity of the process.
Global R&D projects have additional challenges as project
members have diverse cultural backgrounds and work in
different physical locations [5]. Project members work
across space, time, and organizational boundaries toaccomplish interdependent tasks.
The managers in charge of global R&D projects confront
more challenges to manage the projects which involve teammembers from different organizations and theircommunication mostly relies on technology-supported tools[6]. In the case of large projects in which R&D activities are
more complicated, dedicated managers are necessary forfacilitating research activities. Bridge managers (BMs) play

JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENT INFORMATICS AND SMART TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 7, APRIL 2022

an important role in global R&D projects for team building,eliminating gaps between headquarters and foreign R&D
subsidiaries [7], and decomposing R&D requirements andassign them to project members in R&D subsidiaries [8].
BMs encounter difficulties in facilitating global R&D
projects, including quality control, research approachguidance,
requirement
clarification,andteamcommunication [9] as summarized in Table I. The
difficulties cause unsatisfactory outcomes, delay in a projectprogress, and impact the project performance and thecompetitive advantage of the company.
TABLE IDIFFICULTIES OF BMS WHEN FACILITATING GLOBAL R&D PROJECTS
Difficulty
Quality control
Research approachguidance
Requirement
clarification
Team communication

Description
Teams at headquarters and foreign R&D teams
have different outcome expectations.
Foreign R&D teams conduct research using
approaches that do not align with the businessstrategy of headquarters.
Tacit and subjective elements of requirements
are difficult to transfer and to be fully
understood by foreign R&D teams.
Misunderstanding and insufficient
communication between teams at headquarters
and foreign R&D teams.

B. Competencies of Managers
Competency has been defined as knowledge, skills,
abilities, attitudes, and characteristics that help individuals toperform their tasks effectively [10]. Dulewicz and Higgs[11] identified three dimensions of leadership competencies,
including intellectual dimensions, emotional and social
dimensions, and managerial dimensions. They argued thatthe relationship between leadership styles and theorganizational context is important because there is no
single solution for effective performance. The threeleadership styles are engaging (focus on producing radical
change through engagement and commitment), involving(focus on significant change of business model or way ofwork), and goal-oriented (focus on the delivery of clearly
defined results in stable context). Prior studies found that thecompetencies of managers associate with project success[12]. In particular, managerial and emotional competencies
play a significant role in influencing projects success [12].
This relationship could help the company to develop a
project improvement model where the increasing capabilityof managers can lead to the increasing success of project
implementation.
In the case of global R&D projects where BMs play a
crucial role in facilitating research collaboration, it isimportant for BMs to possess particular competencies tosolve specific difficulties and facilitate research activities
effectively. Global R&D projects have dynamicallychanging situations, and researchers from different
organizations involved. BMs may have to regularly adapt
their leadership styles and develop competencies. The
competency development method is important in this regard
to support BMs for their competency development.
Competency development does not mean only training, andleadership competency development can be done using
activities outside work; on the job and experiential learning
are important rather than attending training courses [13]. For

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BMs, the activities outside work and experiential learning
are limited as they work with diverse teams across distances.
Moving to and staying in different locations are costly.
III. BM COMPETENCY DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
A. Workshop Design
Workshop is a meeting where a group of people engages
in intensive discussion on a particular subject [14]. The BM
competency development workshop is designed for BMs todevelop their competencies for facilitating global R&D
projects by taking advantage of intensive discussion andknowledge sharing between participants. The workshop has
three main components, including a case scenario study,
discussion about difficulties in global R&D projects andcompetencies for solving difficulties, and competency
assessment using a questionnaire.
The case scenario is prepared for workshop participants.
This document describes situations in a global R&D projectand identifies key problems related to the difficulties of BM
in facilitating research activities in the project. This casescenario was reviewed by an experienced manager who took
BM role in global R&D projects. It was revised based on
feedback and suggestions from the manager. In the casedocument, first, the case describes detail of a Japanesemultinational company which has R&D units in several
foreign countries, including India. The company assigns amanager to a global R&D project and asks him to take careof research collaboration between headquarters in Japan andforeign R&D subsidiaries in India. This global R&D project
consists of two parts, radical R&D and incremental R&D, inwhich the manager faces several difficulties whenfacilitating research collaboration. After reading the casescenario, participants should be able to understand how the
BM works in global R&D projects, how researchers andengineers of headquarters and foreign R&D laboratories
work together, and have an idea about difficulties offacilitating global R&D projects. This case scenario is abasic information for participants to discuss in the following
step of the workshop.
In addition to the case study and discussion session, aquestionnaire is developed to assess the opinion ofparticipants regarding the importance of competencies forsolving difficulties in global R&D projects. The
questionnaire has three main sections, including introductionand explanation of difficulties in global R&D projects,
importance of competencies for solving difficulties, anddemographic information of participants. Participants arerequested to answer the same questionnaire at two different
occasions, before and after the discussion session.
The questionnaire utilizes AHP method helping
participants to indicate the importance of several
competencies by comparing two competencies at a time. The
pairwise comparison is a fundamental concept of AHP. In
this research, AHP helps participants to prioritize
competencies that help them solve difficulties in global
R&D projects. In this case, there are seven competencies as
AHP options for solving difficulties in global R&D projects[15]. The seven competencies are adopted from prior studies
in leadership competency [16] as shown in Table II. The
AHP model is depicted in Fig. 1.

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TABLE IICOMPETENCIES FOR SOLVING DIFFICULTIES IN GLOBAL R&D PROJECTS
Competency
Knowledge
management
Perception (selfawareness)

Resilience

Decision making
Understanding
worldwidebusiness
environment
Learning foreigncultures andcustoms
Communication
skillsDescription
Ability of leaders or facilitators to elicit andintegrate knowledge from different cultures [17,18].
Ability to understand their own emotions, strengths
and weaknesses, needs and drives, sources offrustration, and reactions to problems. Capability to
manage emotions and to control their impact in theworkplace environment [19, 20].
Ability to have consistently in different pressing
situations and adjust their behavior accordingly;
recover from stress, adjust to stressful occasions,and behave above the norm regardless of stress oradversity [11, 21].
Ability to get information, judging the quality ofthings, services, or people [22].
Ability to obtain a worldwide perspective and tocombine worldwide diversity necessary for
multinational firms [23, 24].
Ability to interact with people from diverse culturesat the same time and adjust to living in foreigncultures; conscious of, appreciation, thoughtful, andadjusting to cultural differences [23, 24].
Ability to communicate directions and vision tostaff, adapt communication styles to the interest ofaudiences, and use communication styles to inspireaudiences [11].

Fig. 1. AHP model included seven competencies helping managers solving
difficulties in global R&D projects.

After answering the questionnaire for the first time
(before discussion session), participants are invited toparticipate in the discussion session to share their opinions
regarding the case scenario and their experience in global
R&D projects. Participants are asked to identify
competencies for solving particular difficulties indicated in
the case scenario. The researcher facilitates this discussion
session and answers questions raised by participants. In thecase scenario, participants are asked to assume that they are
the BM who in charge of research collaboration and face
several difficulties in the global R&D project. They have tothink about solutions to solve difficulties, then think about
competencies that could help them to accomplish thosesolutions. A worksheet is provided for all participants torecord their individual opinions during the discussion. In
addition, there is one worksheet that participants record
information from brainstorming and agreed by allparticipants. This aims to encourage deep discussion andintensive knowledge sharing between participants. After the
discussion session, participants are requested to answer thesame questionnaire as before the discussion session again.
Fig. 2 shows the worksheet for participants to use during
brainstorming and discussion.

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B. Data Analysis
The AHP method is adopted to analyze the questionnairedata. In the initial stage of this research, data were collectedfrom three participants who have experience in global R&D
projects of Japanese companies. Their information is shownin Table III. Participants compared the relative importanceof pair-wise competencies at a time, and entered theirjudgements. The AHP results show different priorities ofcompetencies (for solving the same difficulties) before andafter the discussion session. Table IV shows top threecompetencies that help participants to solve quality control
difficulty.
Worksheet for BM Competency Workshop
This worksheet is a supporting document for the BM Competency Workshop. There is one sheet to
input information from discussion (Group sheet, all participants input together). In addition, eachparticipant please input your ideas in another sheet (Participant 1, 2, 3).
Discussion Guideline
4 difficulties
1) Different priority to deliver outcomes (quality/time/cost)2) Researchers do not fully understand customer needs
3) Quality standard is not defined clearly4) Unbalance communication to support each other between two teams
7 competencies
1) Knowledge management
2) Perception
3) Resilience4) Decision making
5) Learn foreign culture6) Communication
7) Human resource management
3 steps thinking
Practical solution --> Abstract solution --> Competency
ExamplePractical
Abstract
Competency
solutionsolution
DifficultySpecific actions General
Ability, skills, or
solutionsknowledge
Don’t know the cause of a
Ask 5-Whys
Root cause
Critical thinking
problemanalysis
Increase revenue next year
Propose newMarketingMarket knowledge
product
strategy
Please fill in your ideas/opinion in the table below
Practical
Abstract
Competency
solutionsolution
DifficultySpecific actions General
Ability, skills, or
solutionsknowledge
1) Different priority to deliver
outcomes (quality/time/cost)2) Researchers do not fully
understand customer needs
3) Quality standard is notdefined clearly4) Unbalance communication
to support each other between
two teams

Fig. 2. A worksheet for the discussion session of the workshop. This
worksheet provides a guideline for participants to share their ideas andinformation.

Competency
Participant 1
Participant 2
Participant 3

TABLE IIIPARTICIPANT INFORMATION
Position inYears in
Collaboratingcompany
current
countries
positionCEO
7
Korea, China,
UK, France
Team
9
China
memberCEO
15
VietnamAge
range
20 to 30
31 to 40
41 to 50

Knowledge management skills and communication skills
are included in leadership competencies of BMs to facilitate
global R&D projects [16]. The results of the current study
show that Participant 1 and Participant 2 recognized theimportance of knowledge management skills, however,Participant 3 had a different opinion as Participant 3
highlighted the importance of communication skills.

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TABLE IV
TOP THREE COMPETENCIES FOR SOLVING QUALITY CONTROL DIFFICULTY
BeforeAfter
Competency
discussion
discussion
Competency
AHP
Competency
AHP
weightweightParticipant 1
Decision
0.39
Decision
0.29
makingmakingLearning
0.24
Knowledge
0.24
foreignmanagement
cultureCommunicati
0.14
Communicati
0.15
on
on
Participant 2
Human
0.26
Knowledge
0.28
resource
management
management
Knowledge
0.23
Communicati
0.27
managementon
Learning
0.20
Human
0.20
foreignresource
culturemanagement
Participant 3
Communicati
0.29
Decision
0.41
onmakingLearning
0.18
Communicati
0.21
foreignonculturePerception
0.15
Resilience
0.14

Participant 1 reported a significant change in the importanceof knowledge management skills whereas Participant 2
recognized the importance of knowledge management skills
before the discussion session. Fig. 3 shows the changes ofimportance (AHP weight) of knowledge management skills
for solving quality control difficulty from three participants.

Fig. 3. Importance of knowledge management skills for solving quality
control difficulty, before and after the participants participated in thediscussion session of the workshop.

IV. DISCUSSION
The PMCDF is designed for project managers using in
broad application [1]. Organizations should adapt theframework to suit their requirements and context. It is
possible to develop this kind of framework for BMs who
facilitate research collaboration in the global environment as
a BM competency development framework (BMCDF). The
BMCDF may include definition, assessment, anddevelopment of competencies which are customized to thecontext of global R&D management. This research suggeststhat workshop has the potential to be one of the competency
development activities for BMs as the results show thatparticipants changed relative importance of competencies
for solving difficulties in global R&D projects afterparticipated in the workshop discussion.

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Given the increasing need for competent managers who
facilitate global R&D projects [25, 26], this research
examines the effectiveness of the training workshop in
leadership competency development for BMs that included
case study and intensive discussion in order for the
managers to analyze their competency gaps and develop
required competencies by exchanging experiences andknowledge with other managers. This process is likely toprovide an effective method for BMs to develop
competencies in addition to the on-the-job training or
traditional lecture-based training.
This research is in the initial stage and collected data fromthree participants. We plan to conduct more workshops tocollect additional data for further analysis. There are several
limitations in the current research. First, we limited to thedevelopment of leadership competencies, whereas technicalcompetency development may reveal different results. For
example, only discussion in the workshop may not lead to asignificant change in the priority of technical competencies
which require practical training. Further, the data collected
is cross-sectional, the workshop was conducted within acertain period of time. BMs may require longer time tounderstand and realize the importance of competencies when
they facilitate global R&D projects and assess the results.
V. SUMMARY
This research aims to propose a competency development
method for BMs in global R&D projects by using a BM
competency development workshop. The initial results
suggest that workshop participants changed the importanceof competencies after having a discussion with otherparticipants in the workshop. It is likely that participants
have a better understanding of the difficulties in global R&D
projects and perceive the importance of specificcompetencies for solving particular difficulties throughintensive discussion and knowledge sharing. The results
suggest that participation in the workshop may influence theopinion of managers about the importance of competencies
for facilitating global R&D projects. This activity could beconsidered as a method for BMs to develop crucial
competencies for facilitating global R&D projects.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant
Number JP20J15003.
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Nawarerk Chalarak is a postdoctoral
researcher at Japan Advanced Instituteof Science and Technology (JAIST). He
received
B.Eng.
inComputerEngineering from Suranaree Universityof Technology, M.Eng. in Information
Management from Asian Institute ofTechnology, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. in
Knowledge Science from JAIST. He
has experience working as an assistant unit manager andservice coordinator in IT industry in Thailand for almost 6
years. His current research interests are in the areas ofproject management, R&D management, and competency
development.
Naoshi Uchihira is Vice-President andProfessor at School of Knowledge
Science of Japan Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology (JAIST). He
received Dr. Eng. in Information
Science and Engineering from Tokyo
Institute of Technology, and Ph.D.
(Knowledge Science) from JAIST in
1997 and 2010, respectively. He
worked at the corporate R&D center of Toshiba Corporationfrom 1982 to 2013. His current research interests include
project management and digital innovation design.