This article reports a comparative study of six in‐house and eight independent industrial R&D organisations. These organisations are analysed in terms of three types of control strategy ‐ market control, hierarchical control and professional control. The paper suggests that the professional control strategy, emergent after World War Two, is now being increasingly challenged by market control strategies. R&D organisations under or adopting market control are shown to enjoy marked productivity advantages. The distinctive managerial practices of market controlled R&D are analysed. It is concluded that many in‐house laboratories have much to gain by partial adoption of these market control prac