Förflyttning av fabriksarbeten till låglöneländer har varit en vanligt förekommande diskussion den senaste tiden. Idag kan vi se denna trend utvecklas ytterligare till förflyttning av affärsprocesser. En av dessa processer som varit omdiskuterad på senare tid är Forskning och Utveckling, FoU. Trots att FoU bland annat innefattar kunskap och kompetens och det faktum att Sverige är känt för att vara ett land med hög kompetens och framgångsrika högteknologiska företag tycks en stor oro kring risken för utflyttning av högkvalitativa arbeten till låglöneländer förekomma. Genom en kvalitativ studie med en reflexiv metodologi kombinerad med en abduktiv metod har frågan vad FoU-trenden innebär och vilka, från svenska företags perspektiv gällande kompetens och kunskap, hot och möjligheter som finns i denna trend besvarats. Från de tre olika synvinklarna; respondenter arbetandes utanför företag, respondenter arbetandes i företag och respondenter arbetandes nära företag, samlade vi information om det aktuella ämnet och fann sex områden från vilka användbar information kunde användas för att besvara studiens syfte; offshore-trenden, internationalisering av FoU, kostnad kontra kvalitet, kompetens/kunskap, nätverk samt möjligheter respektive hot. Det finns ingen säkerställd information kring internationaliseringens proportioner men en tendens till förflyttning av företag kan fortfarande urskiljas. Detta leder dock även till ett ökat antal utlandsägda företag i Sverige, vilket kan resultera i en bredare och djupare kunskapsbas i landet. Svårigheterna att förflytta kunskap tycks vara ett problem och i takt med att låglöneländernas kompetens ökar kan det vara aktuellt att flytta delar av FoU-enheter. Det är därför av stor vikt att vara flexibel och föränderlig för att ha möjligheten att förbli konkurrenskraftig på den globala marknaden. Vidare spelar nätverk en viktig roll vad gäller global konkurrens eftersom dessa kan leda till ökade kunskaper och möjligheter. Jakten på minskade kostnader och ökad kompetens kommer förmodligen alltid vara ett faktum. Det viktigaste under dagens globala förändringar och nya verklighet är dock att inte tolka förändringarna som hot utan som möjligheter. / The relocation of manufacturing professions in favour of low-wage countries have been a frequent discussion lately. Today we see the trend develop even further, towards relocation of business processes. One of these business processes that have been up for discussion in recent times is Research and Development, R&D. Although R&D is among others built on knowledge and compe-tence and Sweden are known for being a country with high competence and successful high technology companies, a huge worry appears to exist about the risk of loosing highly qualified positions to low-wage countries. By a qualitative study with a reflexive methodology way of thinking combined with an abductive method, we have answered the question what the R&D offshore trend signifies and what, from a Swedish companies’ perspective, considering competence and knowledge, threats and opportunities there are in this trend. From the three different viewpoints; respondents working outside companies, respondents working inside companies, and respondents working close to companies we gained information about the subject in matter and distinguished six areas from were useful information could be gathered in order to fulfil the purpose of the study; the offshore trend, R&D internationalization, cost versus quality, competence/knowledge, networks, and opportunities and threats. There is no ensured knowledge of the internationalization proportions but there is still a tendency to relocation of companies. However, this also lead to an increased number of foreign owned companies in Sweden, which may result in a wider and deeper knowledge base in the country. The difficulties in transferring knowledge seem to be an issue and while low-wage countries’ competence increases there might be in question to relocate part of R&D units. It is therefore of huge importance to stay flexible and responsiveness to be able to stay competitive at the global market. Further net-works play an important role when competing globally since these may contribute to increased knowledge and better opportunities. The chase towards decreased costs and increased competence will always be a fact. However, the most important during today’s international changes and the new reality is to not interpret the changes as threats but as opportunities.

Syftet med denna magisteruppsats är att studera huruvida en hög tillgänglighet till FoU vid företag respektive universitet genererar exporttillväxt. Denna tankegång grundar sig i produktcykelteorin varför även denna uppsats är en analys i dess validi-tet. Företag i en region som har stor tillgång till kunskap och forskning bör även vara i en frontposition inom export. Denna tillgänglighet har grupperats i forskning vi universitet och högskolor eller forskning inom företag. Därtill kan även denna till-gänglighet indelas vid dess geografiska lokalisering. På grund av data som använts vid analysen och dess komplexitet är resultaten troliga-re en indikation än exakta. Tillgängligheten är tveklöst av vikt för exporttillväxten men de olika underavdelningarna skiljer sig från varandra. Företagsforskning tycks påverka exporttillväxten positivt oavsett lokalisering. Därtill följer resultaten teorin eftersom den externa tillgängligheten till företagsforskningen har en betydligt större inverkan än den externa. Tillgängligheten till universitetsforskning ger de mest anmärkningsvärda resultaten. Utan en statistisk säkerhet kan endast en tendens utrönas. Universitetsforskningen ter sig svårare för företag att absorbera oavsett om den utförs inom regionen eller ex-ternt. Relationen mellan företag och universitet kan antas vara av dubbel natur där de å ena sidan påverkar varandra positivt samtidigt som de konkurrerar om samma ut-rymme i en region. / The purpose of this master thesis is to study whether a high accessibility to R&D performed by firms and universities respectively generate export growth. This sug-gestion is founded in the theory of the product cycle why this thesis also scrutinizes its validity. Firms in a region which have a high access to knowledge and research should have a front position within export. This access can be sub-divided into the unit of performance or with respect to the geographical location. Due to the data used in the analysis and its complexity, the final result is an indica-tion rather than precise. The accessibility is doubtlessly of major importance for the export growth but the subdivisions give different results. Research performed by firms seems to affect the export growth positively irrespective of the localisation. Also, the external accessibility to firm research has a larger impact on the export growth than if it is performed internally. The access to research performed by universities gives the most notable results. Without statistical significance a tendency can only be distinguished. The research performed by universities seems more difficult to absorb by firms irrespective of geographical location. The relation between firms and universities may be two folded where it is positive as well as competitive.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the effect of human capital in Swedish export. Human capital is here expressed as the number of employees in the private sector per municipality with university education of at least three years. Two regression models were tested with aggregated export value/municipality and export value per kilo/municipality as dependent variables. Human capital as well as the total accessibility to R&D was assumed to have a positive impact on the Swedish export performance. During the last decades many economists have attached great importance to education, knowledge and investments in R&D. Sweden is in general abundant in human capital and have also several world leading companies characterized by knowledge intensive production and export. According to the Product Life Cycle Theory, Sweden should focus on the first phase that requires high input of human capital and product competition to maintain the competitiveness in the international market. The results indicate as expected that the access to human capital as well as accessibility to R&D have a positive impact on the Swedish aggregated export value and export value per kilo. The assumption about human capital being even more important in high value export could not be confirmed by the results. Innovation promoting investments together with continuous efforts to improve innovation nets and interaction possibilities are presumed to be important factors for Swedish competitiveness also in the future.

This is unique study of import is of the greatest importance, since no studies of import across regions have earlier been performed. Import is a driving force of innovations and therefore most important for a stable growth. This master thesis is about interregional import, as well as the strong spatial concentration of imports in the Swedish system of network. Five hypothesises are presented in the last section of chapter two. The variables to be used in the analysis are then divided into two main groups, before empirically tested in different combinations of regression models. The main conclusion of this thesis is a significant correlation between import, and the two independent variables export and firm R&D, and its result goes in line with the theoretical framework of this thesis, regional specialisation in import and export nodes

High oil price causing high cost of chemical industry, therefore the companies must pay attention to recycle of petrochemical sources, especially the reusing of wasted plastics which speeded global innovation of related techniques and formulas. The cost competition impact forced the plastic companies to raise effective strategy to avoid being expelled from the market. The research aims at three points: firstly, discussion of the facts of plastic recycles between Taiwan and China; secondly, discussion of the strategies of plastic recycles between Taiwan and China and the third, setting up the disruptive innovation strategy module of plastic recycles. The discussion of the theme focuses on organizational strategy, key success factors analysis, the third generation R&D and disruptive innovation. Through the analysis and discussion of some companies as well as the testing of plastic recycles disruptive innovation strategy module, it turns out to be the conclusion and suggestion for plastic recycles disruptive innovation strategy module.

This thesis investigates the theoretical and empirical relationships between a firm’s R&D investment intensity and the systematic risk of its common stock in Sweden. This is done by examining 38 Swedish firms between 1997 and 2005. An overlapping set of 5-year window is chosen to apply to calculate the variables of the samples. In this thesis, three factors are introduced as a proxy of main constituents of systematic risk: intrinsic business risk, degree of financial leverage and degree of operating leverage. And we use these three constituents to analysis the relationship between R&D investment and systematic risk. The results from Monte Carlos simulations and correlation analysis of our sample show that, in Sweden, firms with higher R&D intensity do face higher stock price volatility in the stock market. At the same time, we attempt to test the relationship among R&D and systematic risk’s three constituents, but find that R&D intensive firms have more financial leverage which is opposite to our expect, which might due to the shortage of data and limitation of our sample selection, and R&D intensive firms do not have obvious relations directly with intrinsic business risk, degree of financial leverage or degree of operating leverage.

This thesis analyses the effect of FDI induced technology transfer and spillover on economic growth in the CEE countries and the Baltic States. We develop a framework were FDI and R&D are seen as sources of technological progress (A). Transition economies, due to the need to catch up quickly with more advanced economies, rely on FDI as a major channel through which they can tap the needed technology. Whether or not technology spills over to the entire economy depends on the ability of the countries to diffuse the advanced technology transferred by FDI. We test using panel data analysis, if FDI alone can spur growth or whether the FDI induced technology spillover effect is enhanced by the level of R&D. Empirical evidence is found that FDI and R&D as an interaction term have helped the CEE countries and the Baltic States to accelerate growth by modernizing the economy through an upgrading process.

This study concerns the implications of the discretion in the cut-off point in the accounting method for research and development. Our research problem targets the issues to reduce the existing research gap: - "Does the choice of accounting method for research and development matter when a creditor evaluates a company for a credit granting decision?" - "How does the accounting method for research and development matter in a credit granting decision?" Our study aims to answer these questions by investigating and analyzing the credit granting assessment and by interviewing creditors at the major banks in Sweden. Fictitious case scenarios provide in-depth information about how the accounting methods matter for a credit granting decision. We develop this study by gathering existing material regarding accounting standards, the accounting method and the credit granting assessment. Previous studies about credit granting and the accounting methods supplement the theoretical material. The approach to this study is a hermeneutic approach that tries to grasp the entire picture of the respondents' opinion about the accounting methods. To gain detailed and extensive information from the respondents, we use a qualitative research with semi-structured interviews. The research sample consists of experienced creditors at the largest banks in Sweden. This is to ensure relevant and informative answers on our questions. We utilise the four case scenarios to encourage the respondents to elaborate upon the accounting methods for R&D. This provides detailed knowledge about how the accounting methods matter for a credit granting decision. The respondent states that abnormal values in the R&D account are suspicious and that investigation and adjustments of these values occurs if necessary. From this summarised statement, we draw the conclusion that the accounting methods for R&D matter in a credit granting decision. However, we also establish that other factors are more influential on the decision. Furthermore, we find that the creditors examine the content of the R&D account because the methods and its content have different impact on the financial statements. The expense method indicates a negative impact on the credit granting decision if the company cannot carry the costs, while the recognition method gives an appearance of stronger financial statements. However, the recognition method also gives rise to suspicions if the company relies on previous achievements. We conclude that depending on the amount of R&D both methods can be perceived as an advantage and a disadvantage for a credit granting decision, however, our main finding suggests that a revaluation of the abnormal values in the R&D account occurs. From the support of our findings, we believe that our research has accomplished the objective of the study and we therefore believe that we have contributed to the existing knowledge in the subject.

This study provides an empirical analysis of patent litigation and innovation within high-tech firms. There is a significant drop in R&D over the course of the eleven year period of interest. However, the results do not show litigation causing a significant effect on R&D investments as either a percentage of revenue or a percentage change from year to year. Secondly, there was found to be a slight drop in percentage change of patents earned per year over time, but this was not found to be significantly caused by litigation. However there is strong evidence to support that increased litigation does cause the percentage of patents classified as utility patents to fall. Since this ratio of utility patents per total patents can be viewed as an indicator of innovative quality, this trend suggests that litigation does cause overall innovative quality of a firm’s efforts to diminish.

Le travail de recherche que nous présentons dans ce document porte sur la dynamique des centres de R&D industriels implantés à l'étranger. Comme Ronstadt (1978), Asakawa (2001) et Asakawa & Som (2008), nous constatons que la mission et la position des centres de R&D dans le réseau interne d'innovation de la firme évoluent. Nous avons modélisé cette évolution en quatre phases distinctes : l'implantation du centre, la double phase de la construction de son identité grâce à son intégration au réseau interne d'innovation de la firme et à la construction de son réseau externe d'innovation et enfin la maturité du centre.Nous avons ensuite cherché à comprendre comment le centre passait de sa phase d'implantation,durant laquelle il n'a pas encore d'identité propre, à sa phase de maturité, où il est parvenu à se spécialiser et à devenir un élément clé du réseau interne d'innovation de la firme. Nous avons caractérisé chacun des moments de l'évolution du centre par les types de relations entre le centre,son réseau interne d'innovation et son environnement local. Pour y parvenir, nous nous sommes appuyée sur la littérature sur les clusters qui s'est intéressée aux types de liens nécessaires à l'échange de savoirs et de savoir-faire et à la construction de rapports de confiance entre plusieurs organismes au-delà de la seule considération de leur proximité géographique. Cette littérature apporte un outil peu mobilisé dans la littérature sur la globalisation de la R&D : les proximités (Boschma,2005). Nous avons utilisé six types de proximités pour comprendre et analyser de quelle manière un centre de R&D implanté à l'étranger évoluait : les proximités géographique, institutionnelle organisée, institutionnelle inorganisée, structurelle, cognitive et sociale. Il ressort de nos travaux que chacune des phases de l'évolution du centre se caractérise par une architecture de proximités spécifique entre le centre, son réseau interne d'innovation et son environnement local.Pour parvenir à ces résultats et pour les valider, nous avons combiné plusieurs outils méthodologiques : 1/ nous avons construit et animé pendant deux ans un focus group composé de managers de la R&D industrielle sur le thème de la globalisation de la R&D, 2/ nous avons étudié les centres de R&D implantés à Bangalore de quatre entreprises multinationales : ABB, AkzoNobel,Procter & Gamble et Siemens, 3/ enfin, nous nous sommes appuyée sur un grand nombre de " minicas", recueillis lors d'entretiens informels ou de réunions relatives à la question de la globalisation de la R&D. L'ensemble de ce travail empirique a été fait dans le cadre d'une thèse CIFRE avec l'association européenne pour le management de la recherche industrielle (EIRMA).