The first study presents a novel analysis of horizontal R&D networks in the presence of an industry leader that is not only the dominant firm in the market but also the large R&D investor. In particular, it considers a model of an industry leader and n -1 followers. We analyse cost-reducing R&D investment by firms, which can be fully shared through collaborative links with other firms, while spillovers are not perfect when firms are not connected. The existing literature ignores the effects of market leaders or dominant firms on R&D networks. We contribute to the literature by considering a setting in which there is a dominant firm. We find that the follower firms always have incentives to collaborate with the leader firm because they can enjoy large R&D efforts of the leader firm through voluntary R&D knowledge sharing. In addition, the network, in which the industry leader has a large nunlber of links, maximizes industry-profit for almost all values of the parameter. This result suggests that if transfers between firms are allowed, tlllS network architecture is likely to survive potential deviations by firms because the more beneficial firms have the incentive to 'sponsor' other firms in order to maintain the network structure. Our result seems to be consistent with the empirical evidence in that we observe firms that invest largely in R&D are the central nodes of R&D networks. However, our result also reveal that the network, in which the leader firm is well-connected, performs badly from the social welfare viewpoint. The last finding shows that private incentives to form R&D collaborations are excessive from a social welfare viewpoint. The second study explores vertical R&D collaborations between firms in a two-tier industry, with n upstream firms and n downstream firms, and exclusive dealings among upstream and downstream firms. In this context, we analyse cost-reducing R&D investment by a firm in a tier, which can be shared through collaborative linlcs with other firms in the other tier while there are no R&D spillovers when firms are not connected. We do not consider R&D collaborations between firms in the same tier. We contribute to the literature by considering the stability and efficiency of vertical R&D networks which have not been studied in the literature on R&D networks. Our results show that the difference between voluntary R&D spillovers of the two directions, from the III , "" , -- ------------~~~-- ---- upstream firm to the downstream firm and vice versa, plays an important role in the stability of vertical R&D collaboration networks. We find that, under certain circumstances, the network in which all vertical R&D collaborations are formed is stable and efficient. Otherwise, we can observe a sequence of networks due to continuously profitable deviations by firms. In addition, om results suggest that the private incentives to establish R&D collaborations are not always adequate from a social welfare point of view. This potential divergence implies that there is room for public policy. For example, R&D subsidy should be considered in order to enhance the collaborative activities when the private incentives to form vertical R&D collaborations are not adequate from a social welfare viewpoint. The third study investigates a model of strategic R&D collaboration networks in the open economy framework with tl1Tee countries. In each country, there is a firm that can sell in the domestic and foreign markets. Govermnent of each country can initiate bilateral free-trade agreements (FTAs) to abolish the import tariffs of partners, or impose import tariffs on countries with whom it has no FTA, in order to maximizes its national welfare. The set of FTAs between cowltries creates the FTA network. Firms decide whether and with whom to form R&D collaborations and these R&D collaborations establish the R&D network. This setting builds a double-layer network structme where the FTA network is formed in the first layer and the R&D network is formed in the second layer. In this context, firms invest in cost-reducing R&D, which can be fully shared through collaborative links with other firms, while spillovers between non-collaborating firms are not perfect. Om first finding is that FTAs are beneficial to international R&D collaborations. This result seems to be consistent with the stylized facts that FTAs have grown fast s~nce the early 1990s and international R&D collaborations account for about 60% of newly established R&D partnerships at that time. Om second result shows that the complete FTA networks, in which each country has FTAs with all others, is always stable in the first network layer regardless of the architectmes of R&D networks among firms in these countries. In addition, all global social welfare maximizing double-layer networks must contain the complete FTA network as the first layer. Finally, om analysis reveals that private incentives of firms to form international R&D collaborations are excessive from a global welfare point of View.

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Many consumer products have reached a high level of technical product quality. Rapid adoption of new technologies and access to a global market means that markets are getting saturated. This means that technical differentiation is often not enough to sell a product and products compete more and more on intangible product qualities - these are meant to delight, bring pleasure, be easy to use and to create an experience. These qualities are often difficult to measure in the product using scientific descriptions and numerical measures. This research studies these Non-Quantifiable Product Qualities and the thesis presents research into how companies embed these Non-Quantifiable Product Qualities into their products in an attempt to satisfy their customers. The aim of this research was to gain insight into how large manufacturing companies embed product qualities that are difficult to quantify, by studying their product development process. This was done in two stages, firstly an exploratory study into five case organisations, secondly an in-depth study into three of the original five companies. Fifty interviews with designers, engineers and marketers formed the main source of data, supplemented with observations and document analysis. In the exploratory stage nine initial themes emerged out of data analysis, which then informed the data collection in the descriptive stage. The final output is seven confirmed themes, with 43 major findings and three conceptual models, that describe how companies embed Non-Quantifiable Product Qualities through their product development process. The research has found that the researched companies have some common strategies for embedding Non-Quantifiable Product Qualities. One example is that they will typically seek to translate an emotional response in the customer into measurable product qualities that will evoke such response. It is also common to seek out customer reaction to products during development to ensure successful embedding of Non-Quantifiable Product Qualities.

In a context of compelling evidence from both the US and UK suggesting that R&D investment is positively related to operating and/or market performance, at a first stance this PhD Thesis examines the relation between R&D investment and persistence in operating and market performance using a large dataset of UK companies during the period 1990-2003. The findings confirm the relation between R&D intensity and consistent growth in sales and gross income but only when taking the industry sector in which a firm operates into account. Moreover, the evidence found indicates a positive relation between R&D intensity and subsequent risk-adjusted excess stock returns among firms that engage in R&D. There is also shown that R&D intensity improves persistence in excess stock returns: the highest R&D intensity firms are found to earn higher risk-adjusted excess returns than the sample median return more consistently, compared to lower R&D intensity firms, as well as firms with no R&D. The weight of the evidence is consistent with some form of mispricing related to the market's slow adjustment to the emerging evidence of significant enhancement in operating performance following recent R&D investment. The Thesis also examines whether R&D plays a role in the relationship between dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts and returns, given that R&D has been testified empirically in prior literature as an influencing factor for both forecast dispersion and stock returns separately, and forecast dispersion on its own has been identified as a factor with an impact on returns. In addition, in the context of existing evidence on R&D being positively related with greater analyst forecast errors, the Thesis goes one step further and examines the impact of R&D, intensity on forecast revisions. The hypothesis is in favour of a positive association between R&D and the magnitude of revisions, due to the inherent uncertainty of the R&D investment. These topics are examined again for UK listed firms in the period 1990-2003 and there is testified that R&D intensity is a contributing factor for analyst forecast dispersion for the UK, confirming prior findings for the US. There is confirmed a negative relationship between forecast dispersion and returns, which is found to hold even after controlling for the impact of R&D on returns. After decomposing dispersion in analysts' forecasts into analyst forecast uncertainty and a pure differences in opinion part, there is also found that as R&D intensity increases, the ability of R&D to influence returns also increases for high dispersion and high forecast uncertainty firms, but the ability of R&D to influence returns is getting very week for high divergence of opinion firms. This finding implies that in the presence of high R&D intensity, dispersion has an impact on returns mainly through the forecast uncertainty component of forecast dispersion, and not through the divergence of opinion component. Finally, there is generally found a positive relationship between R&D intensity and forecast errors and revisions, which is most times statistically significant though only in the case of revisions, when there exists a reasonable amount of time between the initial and the revised analyst forecast, after controlling for other factors.

Η παρούσα εργασία σκοπό έχει να συμβάλει στην αποτύπωση της διαφορετικότητας των περιφερειών και να αξιολογηθούν ως προς τον βαθμό αποτελεσματικότητας των διαδικασιών R&D μέσω των πατεντών. Επιπλέον, μέσα από την αξιολόγηση των περιφερειών επιδιώκεται να εξαχθούν συμπεράσματα ως προς τις βέλτιστες πολιτικές που πρέπει να ασκηθούν ώστε κάθε περιφέρεια να χαρακτηρίζεται πλήρως αποτελεσματική. Για τον σκοπό αυτό μελετήθηκαν 186 περιφέρειες της Ευρώπης. Χρησιμοποιήθηκε η μη παραμετρική μέθοδος DEA για υπολογισμό των τιμών Τεχνική Αποτελεσματικότητας καθώς και της Αποτελεσματικότητας Κλίμακας χρησιμοποιώντας ως εισροή μεταξύ άλλων τις δαπάνες σε έρευνα και ανάπτυξη. Να σημειωθεί πως στην παρούσα ανάλυση χρησιμοποιήθηκε η προσέγγιση πολλαπλών εκροών. Είναι κοινά αποδεκτό πως η Έρευνα και Ανάπτυξη δεν επιφέρει μόνο πατέντες αλλά επιδρά και στην οικονομία. Επομένως ως εκροές, ελήφθησαν υπόψη ο αριθμός πατεντών και το ακαθάριστο προϊόν των περιφερειών. / -

Στην παρούσα εργασία γίνεται μια προσπάθεια διαχείρισης, οργάνωσης και ταξινόμησης των δεδομένων της Ευρωπαικής καινοτομίας σε περιφερειακό επίπεδο. / Management, organization and classification of European's innovation data in regional level.

Orientador : Prof. Dr. Walter Tadahiro Shima / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciencias Sociais Aplicadas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Políticas Públicas. Defesa : 25/02/2016 / Inclui referências : f. 233-248 / Área de concentração: Estado, economia e políticas públicas / Resumo: estreitamento das relações entre universidades e empresas, favorecendo a aceleração do desenvolvimento econômico. O Brasil, desde 2003, instituiu novas políticas industriais, e parte delas estimulando a interação UE (Universidade- Empresa). Dentre esses mecanismo, um deles criado pela esfera industrial, situamse o Instituto Senai de Inovação, criado para atender as demandas da indústria para a inovação, mas se alicerçando na universidade, estimulando a interação. O objetivo dessa tese foi verificar se o ISI é uma ferramenta eficaz na aproximação UE. A fpoersaqmu isoas dfoai PfeIiNtaT EcoCm e ddaod oDsG sPe,c duon dCáNrioPsq ,e e p traimmábréioms . foOrsa md orceuamlizeandtaoss eanntarleisvaisdtaoss com diversos agentes envolvidos com o ISI.Diante dos resultados, observou-se que ele só é eficaz entre organizações incipientes em fazer parcerias, e não onde já existe amadurecimento de prospecção de parceiros, mas demonstra capacidade de contribuir com o adensamento do SNI brasileiro. Palavras-chave: relação UE; inovação; ISI / Abstract: One way to enlarge the country innovative structure is through narrow of universityindustry linkages, resulting on economic development. Brazil, since 2003, instituted new industrial policy, stimulating the link between university and industry. One of these mechanisms was created by industrial segment, the Instituto Senai de Inovação, it was created to attend the industrial demands to innovation, searching answers at university, stimulating the links. The purpose of these thesis was verify is ISI is a efficient tool to link industry to universities. One of the results it is ISI is effective between organization with less knowledge to partner, and where there are partner prospection experience, the ISI does not effective, although ISI has the ability to contribute to the consolidation of Brazilian NSI. Key-words: university-industry linkages; innovation; ISI

Plusieurs travaux ont permis de caractériser le rôle des biais cognitifs dans les situations de créativité. Parmi ces biais, on distingue particulièrement les effets de fixation, c’est à dire les connaissances et solutions habituelles qui viennent spontanément à l’esprit des individus lors d’une situation de créativité (tâche de créativité, de génération d’idées, ou de résolutions de problèmes créatifs), et qui contraignent la génération d’idées et de solutions nouvelles et plus créatives. Ces différentes études ouvrent plusieurs pistes pour enrichir la gestion de ces biais cognitifs dans les processus d’innovation.Le leadership est reconnu pour avoir un rôle fondamental à jouer pour aider une équipe à surmonter ces effets de fixation dans un écosystème en situation de créativité. Le leadership est définit comme étant un processus d’influence social dans lequel un ou plusieurs acteurs (jouant le rôle de leaders) emmènent d’autres acteurs (leurs équipes) à atteindre un objectif commun. Leadership et créativité passent souvent pour antagonistes - soit que les leaders soient « créatifs » à la place de leurs équipes, soit que l'autorité doive disparaître pour libérer leurs créativités.Dans un cadre de recherche multidisciplinaire mixant science de gestion (management de l’innovation), sciences cognitives (biais cognitifs à la créativité) et science de la conception innovante (théorie C-K), les leaders créatifs peuvent jouer des rôles très importants pour aider leurs équipes à surmonter les effets de fixations, et ceci selon des règles expérimentales très précises et contrôlées, consistant d’une part à détecter les phénomènes de blocage (la fixation), et d ‘autres part à entreprendre les modes d’actions appropriés pour les surmonter.De plus, ces règles expérimentales peuvent être contextualisées dans des conditions plus générales en organisation, et ceci via les outils de gestion du leadership organisationnel classique (recrutement, allocations de temps et de ressources, motivation, prise de la décision, évaluation, création de climat, spécification des objectifs, etc..). En effet, les méthodes de recherches utilisés pour cette contextualisation organisationnelle consistent à i) mettre en place des protocoles expérimentaux permettant d’isoler les phénomènes de blocages cognitifs dans des situations de créativité ; ii) à générer des règles expérimentales de défixation cognitive dans des contextes bien contrôlés (laboratoire); et iii) à contextualiser ces règles expérimentales de défixation cognitive en utilisant des études de biographies de grands leaders créatifs de l’histoire tél que : Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison ou Mark Zuckerberg. / Several studies have helped to characterize the role of cognitive biases, which appear in situations of creativity. Among these cognitive biases, we can particularly distinguish the fixation effects, that is to say, the obvious knowledge and solutions that comes spontaneously in individuals’ mind during a situation of creativity (creativity task, idea generation, or creative problem-solving), and which consequently constrain the generation of novel and creative ideas and solutions. These different studies open new sights to enrich the management of these cognitive biases in innovation processes.Leadership is recognized as having a fundamental role to play in helping a team overcome these fixation effects in an ecosystem in situation of creativity. Leadership is commonly defined as a process of social influence, in which one or more actors (acting as leaders), lead other actors (their teams) to achieve a common goal. Leadership and creativity are often seen as antagonistic – whether leaders are « creative » in the place of their teams, or that the authority and control must disappear in order for creativity of their teams to flourish.In a multidisciplinary research framework combining management science (innovation management), cognitive science (cognitive biases to creativity) and innovative design science (C-K theory), creative leaders can play very important roles to help their teams overcome fixation effects, and this according to very precise and controlled experimental rules, consisting on the one hand to detect the cognitive biases against creativity (the fixation), and on the other hand to undertake the appropriate modes of actions to overcome them.In addition, these experimental rules can be contextualized in more general conditions, such as organizational contexts, using traditional leadership organizational tools (recruitment, resources and time allocations, motivation, decision-making, evaluation, climate creation, goal-settings, etc..). Indeed, the research methods used for this organizational contextualization of the defixation rules consist of i) building experimental protocols in order to isolate the cognitive effects related to the fixation effects in situations of creativity; ii) generating experimental rules of cognitive defixation in highly and well-controlled contexts (laboratory settings); and iii) contextualizing these experimental rules for cognitive defixation using biographical studies of great creative and innovative leaders in the history, such as for example: Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison or Mark Zuckerberg.