Technology Readiness Levels Improving R&D Management: A Grounded Theory Analysis

The strategic management of an organization is well understood and there are several different frameworks and methodologies available to develop and implement strategies that will put the organization on the right track and make it more competitive. Nevertheless, the ability to manage technology and to assess and choose the right technologies to be used and to be invested in is not that well understood and developed. The technology readiness is important to be measured and managed, so that organizations have the chance to make better decisions on which technologies to rely on and when. Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) is a method developed by NASA nearly 40 years ago and it has been proven to help organizations to manage their technologies. The aim of this paper is to understand, in more details, how TRL can help organizations and what are the potential implications of using it to the betterment of R&D management. Interviews were conducted with technology managers and researchers. Grounded theory was used to analyze the data, and the results indicate that TRLs can improve R&D management. Some hypotheses were formulated and should be confirmed or refuted by future research.