j2kun parent
I guess you have to read a lot into what the OP means by the italicized "the." I read it as a question of the size and scale of working groups vis-a-vis the scale of the impact.
Ah right. The D in R&D, Deployment , was the thing that made Bell Labs special.
Universities diluted the later Nobel credit but it was org-magic at Bell (Labs) that got break-through tech out.