My guess is that Boeing as a whole had very little interest in Zunum's work, but one plausible consequence of that might be increased pressure (real or perceive

My guess is that Boeing as a whole had very little interest in Zunum's work, but one plausible consequence of that might be increased pressure (real or perceived) on the the small number of people working on this niche concern to give the impression that they were achieving something, even if (or especially if) they themselves were not achieving much on their own. To be clear, my only basis for positing this is that it happens in other organizations - academic plagiarism, for example.