There have been fierce debates on the issue of generalizability of management functions, techniques, and practices between public and private sectors. Recognizing the growing concerns for the similarities and differences in R&D settings between the two sectors, we compared three public and three private R&D institutes in terms of environment and resources, project management, and R&D productivity. Our results show that there coexist similarities and differences at the same time between the two types of R&D institutes. So, we cannot conclude definitely whether R&D management is really generic or not. But, the authors weakly reject the assertion of generic property of management as far as R&D management is concerned.