Copyright © 2018 Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7 (3.21) (2018) 270-273 International Journal of Engineering & Technology Website: www.sciencepubco.com/index.php/IJET Research paper Developing a Framework Linking Organizational Creativity Climate, Knowledge Acquisition, and R&D Performance Cheng Ling Tan 1 *, Aizzat Mohd Nasurdin 2 , Sook Fern Yeo 3 1 Graduate School of Business, Universiti Sains Malaysia 2 School of Management, Universiti Sains Malaysia 3 Faculty of Business, Multimedia University *Corresponding author E-mail: tanchengling@usm.my Abstract R&D is the key for the knowledge-intensive and high value-added innovations in the firms. To expedite R&D activities, the Malaysian government increased its R&D expenditure to motivate R&D engineers to innovate, to engage actively in the commercialization of pa- tents and the filing of intellectual property. This study aims to identify environmental factors that can intensify the R&D performance and increase the potential for innovations to be commercialized. Extensive literature review indicated that organizational creative climate influences R&D performance. Hence, organizational creative climate has been proposed as a significant predictor of R&D performance. However, inconsistent findings have been reported by various researchers. Therefore, knowledge acquisition capability is added as an intervening variable that can influence the relationship between organizational creative climate and R&D performance. To the researcher’s knowledge, no attempt has been made to integrate the organizational creative climate with knowledge acquisition and R&D performance. It is hoped that this study will result in a better understanding of the factors that can influence R&D performance, particu- larly among medical devices manufacturers. Keywords: R&D Performance; Knowledge Acquisition; Organizational Creative Climate. 1. Introduction Malaysia is one of Southeast Asia’s most dynamic economies because of its impressive economic and social development over the last half-century. In recent years, Malaysia’s economy has maintained resilient growth despite facing new competition from its East Asian counterparts (1). For Malaysia to remain competitive, it has to commit to innovation to support a broad- based upgrading towards more knowledge-intensive industries. Research and development (R&D) plays a crucial role in the inno- vation process in any industry or technology sector. Technology and innovation are the key driving forces that determine the eco- nomic growth and global competitiveness of a nation. The Malaysian government has increased its investment in R&D with the purpose of motivating R&D engineers to commercialize their innovative products and services and to increase the filing of intel- lectual property, as well as scientific publications. Its emphasizes on innovation of substantially improved products and processes in Malaysia has resulted in an increase in the number of R&D engi- neers per 10,000 workers from 17.9 in 2006 to 58.2 in 2012. Gross R&D expenditure in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) also rose from 0.5% in 2006 to 1.1% in 2012 (2). Simultaneously, the Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) also increased from 0.64 in 2006 to 1.13 in 2012. Despite the growth of R&D expenses, Malaysia’s performance in innovation has not kept pace with the significant improvements made in other key sectors. One of the six strategic thrusts in 11th Malaysia Plan is to reengi- neer economic growth for greater prosperity. While all economic sectors move into more knowledge-intensive and high value- added investments, producing high-value goods and services can generate higher income similar to those in developed countries. Hence, unleash innovation through new or improved processes, advance technologies, and newly generated business models can bring in more revenue, and at the same time produces highly differentiated products and services that satisfy the needs of the ever-changing customers. Highly knowledge-based industries, such as Medical Devices industry often face challenges in managing the various types of innovation projects, which involves either radical innovations with revolutionary results in technology and product or incremental innovations with minor improvement on the existing technology and product (3). The overall project performance is determined by the ability of the firms to generate new (novel or adopted) ideas and solutions, develop new products and new methods, and pro- duce applicable prototypes or models for the use of the organiza- tion. Medical devices are highly demanded and successful R&D projects are able to develop and produce innovative products and services that can help the organization to face economic complexities and to compete effectively with the competitors. Given the importance of R&D project performance in enhancing the medical devices manufacturers’ growth and performance, this study aims to develop a framework that can link the influencing factors that would enhance the R&D project performance of medi- cal devices manufacturers.