Models of R&D account for technical, technological and administrative factors of R&D implementation but underestimate the influence of behavioural and political factors such as power and conflict. They assume that R&D organisation is “well-insulated” from partisan, emotions, political reactions and contextual factors and that decision makers are rational and decisions are taken to best fit the content of R&D programme. The present study explores the effects of rational and irrational factors in the R&D implementation process on the performance of publicly funded research projects in universities. It uses realist and qualitative exploratory semi-structured interviews with 22 active researchers in Sultan Qaboos University provides “depth and detail” of the complexities of R&D implementation effects on its performance. The study discovers 18 measures of success of academic research and 30 effects of R&D implementation of the performance of publicly funded research.The study concludes that the iterative, non-linear and processual nature of R&D implementation is a continuous dynamic system. R&D success builds up the capacity for future success whilst failures decrease the chances of future successes. The integrated effects of implementation (IEI) influence R&D performance through technical and administrative capability of the R&D organisation as well as through behaviours of organisation members. These include leaders’ behaviours, conflict and political skills within individuals. Both success dynamism and IEI suggest contextualism implementation of R&D.

Ever since the first Industrial Revolution, during which many textile artisans lost their jobs to weaving machines, the relationship between technological progress and unemployment has been explored and examined by researchers and policy makers. Existing empirical research, mostly at the microeconomic level, has presented ambiguous results. Procuring data on 51 U.S. states for a period of 19 years and a large number of controls, this paper studies the employment effect of technological innovations with a novel state-level macroeconomic analysis. Using commercially-supplied Research and Development expenditure as a proxy, this paper finds that although technological innovations have a non-significant effect on employment at the general state level, there are a few factors that determine how well each state’s labor market responds to technological changes. More specifically, non-urbanized, non-tech-savvy, or states with a large number of workers employed in Manufacturing or Accommodation and Food Services industry experience a more severe unemployment effect than the other states. The results also suggest that unemployment rate is more negatively affected by technological innovations during the Obama Administration, compared with the Clinton and Bush Administration. This paper adds to the limited, macroeconomic literature on technological unemployment, and provides policy makers with important implications on how to prepare citizens for the imminent waves of technological changes.

Interest of STI policies to influence the innovation behaviour of firms has been increased considerably. This gives rise to the notion of behavioural additionality, broadening traditional evaluation concepts of input and output additionality. Though there is empirical work measuring behavioural additionalities, we know little about what role distinct firm characteristics play for their occurrence. The objective is to estimate how distinct firm characteristics influence the realisation of behavioural additionalities. We use survey data on 155 firms, considering the behavioural additionalities stimulated by the Austrian R&D funding scheme in the field of intelligent transport systems in 2006. We focus on three different forms of behavioural additionality project additionality, scale additionality and cooperation additionality and employ binary regression models to address this question. Results indicate that R&D related firm characteristics significantly affect the realisation of behavioural additionality. Firms with a high level of R&D resources are less likely to substantiate behavioural additionalities, while small, young and technologically specialised firms more likely realise behavioural additionalities. From a policy perspective, this indicates that direct R&D promotion of firms with high R&D resources may be misallocated, while attention of public support should be shifted to smaller, technologically specialised firms with lower R&D experience.

Cette thèse est une collection de travaux théoriques sur les effets concurrentiels des stratégies de croissance externe (opérations de fusions-acquisitions) et interne (activités de R&D). Il s’agit de déterminer l’impact de ces deux modes possibles d’expansion sur le comportement des firmes, leur profitabilité et le bien-être social. La thèse est divisée en deux parties principales. Partie I (effets concurrentiels des stratégies de croissance externe) : On considère que les fusions horizontales génèrent un choc sur le coût des entreprises.Celui-ci se traduit soit par une incertitude sur le coût de production expost de l’entité fusionnée (chapitre 1), soit par un mécanisme de transfert technologiquedans une perspective internationale (chapitre 2). Dans le chapitre 1, nous étudions l’impact de l’incertitude sur la profitabilité des stratégies de fusionsacquisitionsen considérant un oligopole de Stackelberg. Dans le chapitre 2, nous vérifions si l’option d’entrée par fusions-acquisitions est plus efficace par rapport à d’autres modes d’entrée sur des marchés étrangers, tels que l’Investissement Direct Etranger ou l’exportation.Partie II (effects concurrentiels de stratégies de croissance interne):Les efforts R&D ou le bénéfice d’effets de spillovers contribuent `a une réductiondu coût (chapitre 3) mais aussi `a une amélioration de la qualité (chapitre 4). Endistinguant les décisions de long-terme (choix en R&D) et des décisions de court terme (choix en prix ou en quantité), nous étudions l’effet de régimes complets etpartiels de collusion dans le chapitre 3. Nous considérons l’impact des choix en R&D sur l’incitation à adopter un régime de délégation partielle ou totale, dans le chapitre 4. / This thesis is a collection of theoretical essays in the area of horizontal M&As and R&D with spillovers. As we know, organizations consider horizontal M&As as the external mode of expansion, and regard R&D as one of the most efficient internal expansion modes, to achieve and maintain sustainable growth. This thesis pursues the firm growth’s tactic to trace the impact of two aforementioned expansion modes on firm’s performance and profitability. The dissertation is divided into two parts, which respectively focus on the following issues:Part I: (competitive effects of external growth strategies)Horizontal M&As generate cost variation via uncertainty (Chapter 1) or via technological transfer (Chapter 2). We aim to study different types of horizontal M&A and find out which one is the most profitable from the national perspective, and to verify whether the M&A entry option is more efficient compared to others, such as Greenfield FDI and exporting, from the international perspective.Part II: (competitive effects of internal growth strategies)R&D effort contributes to cost reduction (Chapter 3) or to quality enhancement (Chapter 4), and it can be beneficial to other firms at no cost due to spillover effect. By considering the long-run R&D decision and the short-run price (or quantity) decision, we attempt to distinguish between full and partial regimes in terms of collusion (Ch.3) or delegation (Ch.4), and to illustrate whether firms have incentive to adopt partial regime.

Since the 21st century, with the further development of globalization, innovation resources came into an open innovation era. Innovation resources can flow freely in a global scale. In the process of flow, innovation resources agglomeration in some cities, makes these cities become the global science and technology innovation center. Innovation has become the most important source of competitive advantage, and building innovative capacity can provide a strong impetus for the comprehensive competitiveness and economic prosperity (Porter & Stern, 2001). Innovation resources agglomeration makes innovation happen continuously, thus makes the global science and technology innovation center becomes the new engine and important support of national comprehensive strength. After two major industrial structure shift, the traditional development advantages are vanishing. The current economic growth of Shanghai is below the national average; the traditional development advantage is gradually weakening. At the same time, China's economy is faced with an L-shaped recession (Lei, 2016). Therefore, to become the global science and technology innovation center is not only necessary for Shanghai’s own transformation and development, but also accordance with the national development strategy. The aim of the Chinese government is to preliminarily finishes the work of develop Shanghai into the global science and technology innovation center during the period of 13th Five-Year Development Plan1 (from 2016 to 2020). Improve the innovation resources agglomeration capacity of Shanghai, and maximum accumulate innovation resources is the key to success. The existing studies have shown that innovation resources agglomeration has the characteristic of self-organizing, and there is the Matthew effect in this process: the better the innovation foundation, the more obvious the agglomeration effect, and vice versa. This research will from the perspective of the innovation system theory, using DEA method to study the R&D resources utilization efficiency of Shanghai’s industrial enterprises above designated size, demonstrates the deficiencies of Shanghai’s innovation resources agglomeration foundation, and put forward suggestions for improvement.

This thesis analyzes the effectiveness of public spending on defense research and development (hereafter R&D) financed from the state budget in chapter of the Czech Ministry of Defence. I evaluated the spending effectiveness based on usability criteria and based on my own evaluation criteria. The findings prove the spending on defense R&D to be ineffective as the effectiveness coefficient resulted to be only 51%.

Conventional wisdom suggests that firm’s patenting choice is largely due to strategic considerations such as industry competition and the prominence of the invention. We explore this issue from a managerial discretion perspective, suggesting that patenting choice facilitates managerial discretion via earnings management. On the one hand, not filing patents generates a more opaque information environment for market scrutiny, suggesting higher chance of earnings management. On the other hand, stewardship theory indicates that managers use trade secrets to protect their intellectual property. We find that non-patenting firms do not engage in financial earnings management while their real activity based earnings management is lower than patenting counterparts. On average, non-patenting choice does not lead to harmful opaqueness.

O crescimento populacional e o acelerado processo de urbanização das cidades de médio e grande porte, têm contribuído para a geração de grandes volumes de resíduos da construção, renovação e demolição (RCD) de edificações e infra-estrutura urbana. A ausência de gerenciamento desses resíduos por parte das administrações municipais tem ocasionado significativo aumento nos custos de limpeza pública e degradação da qualidade ambiental das áreas de descarte. Diante destes fatos, faz-se necessário planejar políticas de desenvolvimento sustentável para o setor de construção civil como forma de minimizar os danos ambientais. Este trabalho apresenta o diagnóstico da situação atual dos RCD da cidade de São Carlos-SP e estudo do modelo de gestão desses resíduos, como primeiro passo para aproveitamento do potencial reciclável dos entulhos de construção. Na elaboração do diagnóstico dos RCD, foram estudados aspectos que cercam sua geração, composição, manejo e descarte. Descrição dos indicadores básicos do município foram importantes na análise do setor gerador e seu desenvolvimento. A caracterização quantitativa forneceu a dimensão da geração, enquanto a composição foi determinada pela caracterização qualitativa. Os sistemas de coleta, transporte e disposição final, apresentaram uma visão da situação do manejo dos entulhos em São Carlos. O mapeamento dos locais de deposição irregular de RCD, revela áreas mais vulneráveis a impactos ambientais com problemas para administração municipal. Todos esses fatores são essenciais na investigação, como subsídios para programa de gestão integrada entre a prefeitura municipal e os geradores. / Large amounts of waste debris (demolition and construction services) from urban infrastructure works has been noticed in the last years due, to increase of population, urbanization process of medium and large cities. The absence of management procedures for the wastes has implied important increase for urban cleaning costs, as well as environmental degradation of dumping areas. The implementation of plans for sustainable development of civil construction area is required in order to minimize the environmental damages. This work presents a diagnosis for the waste debris current situation in São Carlos - SP and the study for a management model, aiming to provide a first contribution for the re-use of recycle materials. Aspects related to generation, composition, collection, and disposal of waste debris were assessed. Basic municipal indexes were used to assess and to characterize the growth and production of the civil construction area. The quantitative characterization provided the generation dimension while waste composition was determined by a qualitative characterization. An overview of the current situation in São Carlos was obtained from the evaluation of collection, transportation and final disposal system. Mapping of legal and no legal disposal sites indicated the most environmentally vulnerable areas that represent a problem for the municipality. All these factors are essential for an integrated management program involving the municipality and the waste debris generators.

Esse trabalho teve como objetivo contribuir para o debate sobre a importância das políticas de incentivo à inovação no Brasil. Os resultados esperados do uso que as empresas fizeram dos diferentes tipos de instrumentos sobre os gastos em pesquisa e desenvolvimento (P&D) foram avaliados pelo método de diferenças em diferenças. O método permitiu obter as diferenças de gastos entre empresas beneficiárias de instrumentos e as não-beneficiárias em três períodos consecutivos: 2005 em relação à 2003; 2008 em relação à 2005 e de 2011 em relação à 2008. Ao fazer isso, foi possível identificar se tais diferenças foram positivas e significativas, podendo ser atribuídas às influências dos instrumentos. Os instrumentos utilizados foram: incentivos fiscais, Lei de Informática, financiamentos em parcerias, financiamentos sem parcerias e subvenção. E a utilização dos mesmos pelas empresas teve maior relevância no âmbito de diversos programas de apoio à inovação vigentes no país a partir da retomada das políticas industriais e tecnológicas, nos anos 2000. O estudo concluiu que os efeitos positivos e significativos são limitados à determinados grupos tecnológicos e à poucos instrumentos, em geral, de caráter fiscal. Além disso, esses efeitos positivos surgem em apenas um período, sendo que para cada grupo tecnológico foram efetuadas estimativas para três períodos. Também não houve evidências de que os instrumentos financeiros exerçam efeitos significativos sobre as decisões de gastos em pesquisa e desenvolvimento, apesar da maior ênfase dada aos mesmos no período estudado. Os resultados sugerem fraca influência dos mecanismos de apoio à P&D no Brasil sobre o aumento dos gastos privados, apesar dos avanços recentes. / This study aimed to contribute to the debate about the importance of encouraging innovation policies in Brazil. Understanding the role played by public support instruments to research and development activities in relation to private business spending has become fundamental to achieving this end. The expected results of the use that companies made of different types of instruments on spending were evaluated by the method of difference in differences. This allows you to compare, over a certain period of time, the differences in expenses between the companies that made use of any type of instrument and the companies that did not. Thus, the method yielded differences in spending between the beneficiary and nonbeneficiary firms of those instruments of three consecutive periods: 2005 compared to 2003; 2008 compared to 2005 and 2011 compared to 2008. In doing so, it was possible to identify whether these differences were positive and significant and can be attributed to the influence of the instruments. The instruments used were: tax incentives, Information Technology Law, financing partnerships, financing and grants. And their use by companies had most relevance within various programs to support innovation in force in the country from the resumption of industry and technology policy in the 2000s. The study concluded that the positive and significant effects are limited to certain technological groups and the few instruments in general tax character. In addition, these positive effects arise in one period, and for each technology group estimates were made for three periods. There was also no evidence that the financial instruments carry significant effects on spending decisions on research and development, despite the greater emphasis given to them during the study period. The results suggest weak influence of mechanisms to support R&D in Brazil on the rise in private spending, despite progress in recent years.

Financing of research and development, as an important component of innovation, has attracted a renewed attention in academic financing literature. This paper examines the effect of financing constraints on R&D investments of high-tech Swedish companies over the period of 2010 to 2016. Accordingly, balance sheet data related to 49 companies, which has the smaller amount of employees in comparison with the rest of high-tech publicly listed companies is collected. Moreover, a dynamic model based on previous literature about financing constrained is developed to study the relation of both internal and external resources of financing with R&D investments of the selected companies. The result of this study shows that internal resources of financing such as cash holdings have a positive correlation with R&D investments. The coefficient of this financial variable is large enough to conclude that selected firms are financially constrained. However, based on other factors such as consideration of age and occurrence of global financial recession in the period that this study is accomplished, I concluded that dependence of companies to their internal resources for financing their R&D investments is an outcome of the characteristics of their environment.