Strategic issues in global technological innovation projects

This article aimed to identify those issues that were present in global technological innovation projects carried out by Brazilian multinational companies and which performance criterions these undertakings have met. Besides that, we also sought to understand how strategic issues influenced project performance in multinational companies. We have investigated 36 global technological innovation projects from Brazilian multinational enterprises through a web-survey. Findings show that these companies have gone beyond the traditional iron triangle to evaluate their technological efforts and considered additional performance dimensions such as customer satisfaction, business results, and preparation for the future. Results also show high degree of presence for issues emerging from R&D activities, industry, and external environment, moderate degree of presence for issues emerging from both the project and R&D activities, and low degree of presence for issues emerging from the headquarters and subsidiaries. Regression outputs show that project performance has been impacted under the following dimensions: business results, organization´s capabilities, marketing focus, and synergy among organization units.