There are two very good articles that deal with this issue:
"..,Orchestrating from Organizational Discord to Harmony," by Charmaine
Judy Streharsky (SRA Journal, Winter, 1989) and another by Wendell
McBurney, but I don't have the citation.

It seems that several schools are wrestling with this issue as budgets
shrink and donors start to act more like sponsors.

Perhaps the placement of the office is less important first step than
defining its function:
institutions new to sponsored program administration need to define the
function of a research administration office in terms of stimulation of
faculty involvement in sponsored programs and protection of the
institution in an arena that is far more demanding of accountability than
the world of unrestricted funds.

That seems to link the office absolutely to academic affairs (so that
encouragement from provost and dean work with the effort) and with
connections to the business office as well.