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Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

This dissertation develops a theoretical framework for the analysis of oligopolistic rivalry through cost-reducing research and development (R&D) expenditures in an environment where firms cannot fully appropriate the results of their R&D investment. This framework is developed in order to examine the incentives of firms to invest in R&D in oligopolistic markets, the implications for the structure and performance of industries subject to such spillovers and the nature of public policy in this context. Two lines of research are followed: one focuses on technological factors affecting incentives and performance, the other on the influence of strategic behaviour. With respect to technological factors, it is argued that the impact of research spillovers on market incentives and performance, and on the desirability of a public policy of R&D subsidies, depends crucially on the specific assumptions made about how a firm's production process is affected by its own R&D and that of its rivals. These assumptions are embodied in the knowledge production function and the associated cost function facing each firm. Issues of substitutability and complementarity between a firm's research and that of its rivals and between various components of a firm's own research are central in determining the impact of spillovers. The level and composition of R&D investment, production and profitability, concentration and monopoly power are all influenced by the impact of rivals' research on the marginal productivity of a firm's own research. Optimal subsidies are similarly influenced. This suggests that the effectiveness of such policies towards R&D investment depends on the nature of technology and on specific appropri-ability characteristics of industries. With respect to strategic behaviour, the dissertation extends previous research in the context of a multi-stage model of international competition in R&D to the case where R&D is subject to spillovers. This allows an examination of the importance of different behavioural assumptions (one-stage vs. multi-stage decision-making) on the impact of spillovers. The analysis also questions the results of strategic models obtained with full appropriability of R&D, whereby strategic behaviour results in higher equilibrium levels of R&D and production and lower profits. Strategic behaviour can result in lower R&D and higher profitability if research is difficult to appropriate. The conditions under which this occurs are explored fully. The characteristics of industrial policy in the context of strategic international competition are then explored. Models that assume fully appropriable R&D suggest the optimality of a policy of positive subsidies to the R&D expenditures of domestic firms. The existence of spillovers may reverse this result. The analysis thus casts doubt on the efficacy of a government policy of R&D subsidies in a strategy of "precommitment". This goes beyond the usual retaliatory arguments against such behaviour and points to the limits of such an interventionist approach in an international environment where R&D has some characteristics typical of public goods.

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This work addresses the problem of how an R&D section should decide on a strategy to guide its work when there is no strategic direction supplied from above by the company. The work includes a participant observer case study carried out over five years in a single R&D section, an analysis of research papers on the subject of management of section level R&D, and a review of textbooks on strategy, management and organisational behaviour. From the case study it was concluded that the company itself formed the strategic environment which the strategy of the R&D section had to address, and that the section’s strategic environment was chaotic in the mathematical sense. From the review of management textbooks it was concluded that standard theories do not give usable guidelines for the manager in this situation. A theory was developed that R&D strategy can be thought about in four distinctly different ways. Publications concentrate on two of these, while the case study and surveys of practising managers revealed that the other two were more pertinent in practice. The analysis of research papers was carried out using a newly developed technique, which showed that this body of literature is in a pre-paradigm state. The new technique was also used to show that the four different ways of thinking about R&D are present in the papers. The new literature analysis technique and the theory that R&D strategy can be thought about in four different way were tested by means of questionnaires filled in by authors of papers and by groups of R&D practitioners.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-93). / Globalization has transformed the world into a big village in which the rich are becoming richer and the poor getting poorer. In the commercial world the trend is for big business to buy out the smaller companies and consequently get bigger. Yet it is arguable that small businesses have assisted in providing much needed services to small communities that occupy informal settlements and exist on or below the poverty datum line. The South African government has amongst its main objectives the alleviation of poverty and the improvement of life in previously disadvantaged communities. The government has allowed the micro-enterprises and small businesses in the informal sector to thrive and in this sector are Spaza shops that supply a wide range of grocery commodities to informal settlements. This paper is about an application framework of soft and hard operational research (OR) techniques used to address the performance of micro-enterprises with Spaza shops in Western Cape as a specific case study. The techniques include Strategic Options Development and Analysis (SODA) using Causal mapping and Soft System Methodology (SSM). These were chosen because of their suitability to understand performance problems faced by Spaza shops owners and find ways of improving the current situation by modelling the intervention of stakeholders. The improvement of Spaza shop businesses is a matter for all stakeholders. Causal mapping, helped to identify and structure the multiple conflicting aspects of Spaza shops business. Soft System Methodology made it possible to conceptualize the intervention model based on the rich picture and root definitions for relevant world-views and see what changes are culturally feasible and systematically desirable. Computer simulations were used to help design and test performance measurement indicators for the Spaza shops so as to enable decision-makers to choose the optimal strategy. Statistical analysis came into account to enable us to capture the seasonality and bring up clustering patterns.

There is a dearth of research on the application of hard Operational Research (OR) techniques (simulation, linear programming, goal programming, etc.) in determining optimal ordering, inventory and allocation policies for goods within distribution systems in developing countries. This study aims to assist decision making at a not-for-profit organization (NPO), Foodbank South Africa (FBSA), within its allocation system through a combined ‘soft-hard’ OR approach. Two problem-structuring tools (soft OR), Causal Mapping (CM) and Soft System Methodology’s Root Definitions (RDs), are used to structure the organization's goals (in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the decision-context) and gain a better understanding of the ‘decision-issues’ in the allocation system at its Cape Town warehouse.