Firms are central to the functioning of the economy. Ever since Smith (1838) and Coase (1937), economists have gone a long way trying to understand why firms exist, how they are organized, and how they interact through the market.This thesis contributes to the study of how regulation and market incentives can affect firm decisions and their organization. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Favorisées par les gouvernants en quête d’un nouveau modèle post-industriel, les économies basées sur la connaissance vont devenir en quelques décennies le référentiel à atteindre pour le développement de territoires soumis aux pressions de la globalisation.Longtemps considérés comme des éléments indispensables à la production et à la transmission du savoir, les établissements d’enseignement supérieur et de recherche, comme les universités, ont été de plus en plus intégrés dans les analyses sur le développement territorial à mesure que s’imposait le paradigme américain de la valorisation des activités de la recherche publique. Cette nouvelle mission imposée aux établissements de recherche, suppose qu’ils sont des facteurs d’un développement localisé. Mais le rôle qui leur est assigné est-il justifié ? À travers l’impact singulier de la recherche publique, on peut analyser la place de ces établissements sur leur territoire d’accueil. Apres avoir fait un état de l’art en matière d’analyse d’impact nous utilisons le cadre méthodologique de l’étude d’un cas illustrant cette problématique. L’agglomération de Brest mise sur la forte concentration d’établissements de recherche à vocation maritime pour développer le cluster local. Bien que non généralisable, ce cas éclaire les recherches dans ce domaine. Au-delà, la thèse apporte une autre vision sur les réformes de type top down des systèmes d’enseignement supérieur et de recherche considérant le savoir comme n’importe quel bien économique. Or la connaissance n’est pas un bien comme les autres. Et c’est cette singularité qui explique les difficultés d’analyse dans le champ de l’économie de la connaissance. / Promoted by governments seeking for a new post-industrial model, the knowledge-based economies will become in a few decades the repository to reach for the development of territories subject to the pressures of globalization. Regarded as essential to the production and transmission of knowledge, higher education and research institutions, such as universities, have been increasingly integrated into the analysis of territorial development while was emerging the american paradigm for valorisation of public research activities. This new mission imposed on research institutions, assume they are factors of localized development. Is this assigned role justified? Through the singular impact of public research, we can analyze the role of these institutions on their home territory. After a state of the art on the impact assessments, we developed a methodological framework for case study illustrating this problem. In the agglomeration of Brest, there is a high concentration of research institutions with maritime vocation on which rely the local cluster. Although not generalizable, this case enlightens the research in this domain. In addition, the thesis sheds new light on the top-down reforms of higher education and research systems considering knowledge as any economic good. But knowledge is not a commodity like others. And that would explain the difficulties of analysis in the field of the knowledge economy.

This thesis consists of three empirical essays studying the capital market implications of the accounting for R&D costs. The first empirical study (Chapter 2) re-visits the debate over the positive R&D-returns relation. The second empirical study (Chapter 3) examines the risk relevance of current R&D accounting. The third empirical study (Chapter 4) explores the joint impact of R&D intensity and competition on the relative relevance of the idiosyncratic part of earnings. Prior research argues that the positive relation between current R&D activity and future returns is evidence of mispricing, a compensation for risk inherent in R&D or a transformation of the value/growth anomaly. The first empirical study contributes to this debate by taking into account the link between R&D activity, equity duration and systematic risk. This link motivates us to employ Campbell and Vuolteenaho (2004)'s intertemporal asset pricing model (ICAPM) which accommodates stochastic discount rates and investors' intertemporal preferences. The results support a risk based explanation; R&D intensive firms are exposed to higher discount rate risk. Hedge portfolio strategies show that the mispricing explanations is not economically significant. The second empirical study contributes to prior research on the value relevance of financial reporting information on R&D, by proposing an alternative approach which relies on a return variance decomposition model. We find that R&D intensity has a significant influence on market participants' revisions of expectations regarding future discount rates (or, discount rate news) and future cash flows (or, cash flow news), thereby driving returns variance. We extend this investigation to assess the risk relevance of this information by means of its influence on the sensitivity of cash flow and discount rate news to the market news. Our findings suggest R&D intensity is associated with significant variation in the sensitivity of cash flow news to the market news which implies that financial reporting information on R&D is risk relevant. Interestingly, we do not establish a similar pattern with respect to the sensitivity of discount news to the market news which may dismiss the impact of sentiment in stock returns of R&D intensive firms. The third empirical study examines the effect of financial reporting information on R&D to the value relevance of common and idiosyncratic earnings. More specifically, we investigate the value relevance of common and idiosyncratic earnings through an extension of the Vuolteenaho (2002) model which decomposes return variance into its discount rate, idiosyncratic and common cash flow news. We demonstrate that the relative importance of idiosyncratic over common cash flow news in explaining return variance increases with firm-level R&D intensity. Extending this analysis, we find that this relation varies with the level of R&D investment concentration in the industry. Those results indicate that the market perceives that more pronounced R&D activity leads to outcomes that enable the firm to differentiate itself from its rivals. However, our results also suggest that the market perceives that this relation depends upon the underlying economics of the industry where the firm operates.

Šulcová, Darina. Knowledge Economy as the Factor of Firm Economic Performance. Diploma thesis. Brno: Mendel University in Brno, 2018. The main aim of this diploma thesis is to find out if there is any relation between the Knowledge Economy and Economic Performance. Member states of the European Union are compared within each other in accessing the Knowledge Economy not only according to composite indicators, but also according to sub-indicators of the Knowledge Economy. This thesis focuses on the situation of the Czech Republic and how it accesses sub-indicators of the Knowledge Economy. Member states are then compared also according to their national, high-tech industry and firm Economic Performance. The analysis of the relation between the composite indicators or sub-indicators of the Knowledge Economy and national, high-tech industry or firm economic performance is the key part of this thesis. In the end, there is a summary of main findings and some recommendations are made for the Czech Republic to improve its Knowledge Economy situation.

Information Technology (IT) has become a vital tool for most industrial businesses and Scania CV AB is no exception. As the importance of IT generally has increased, the usage and number of applications has grown as well. Applications are substantial assets for an organization that is heavily supported by IT. Consequently, a way of managing applications efficiently and sustaining the costs of applications rather low – doing more with less – is required. In addition it is also important, from a business perspective, that applications as part of IT are aligned with business strategies and goals. Application Portfolio Management (APM) is a practice and a business-centric activity aimed to allocate IT resources to support business objectives and strategies; it helps determining the impact of applications and the relative importance of each application in the portfolio to the business. APM attempts to justify and measure the financial benefits of each application relative to the costs of the applications’ maintenance and operations. Performing APM successfully is nevertheless a complicated issue, and something that many businesses are challenged with on a daily basis. New applications are constantly and regularly added, downloaded, purchased or self-developed – too often without any further control. In order to regain the control of the software that automates the business, and ensuring that the applications adds value and reliability to the company, Scania CV AB requires a rigorous and comprehensive method for an APM approach. In this master thesis together with Erik Nylén’s thesis 1, such a method is provided. The thesis also offers a suggestion on how to proceed with the APM effort at Scania CV AB.

This study examines the relationship between firm innovation and Initial Public Offering (IPO) underpricing in the Swedish stock market by examining 287 firms that went public on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm and Nasdaq First North during the years 2010 – 2020. An OLS regression model is utilized to analyze the relationship between underpricing, measured as the initial returns, and firm innovation, measured as patents and Research and Development (R&D). The average initial returns for the sample were (+8,16 %) showing that IPOs are, on average, underpriced in the Swedish stock market. While the connection between patents and underpricing was negligible, the results indicated that firms that reported R&D expenditures separately, specifying how much of their expenditures were spent on R&D, experienced a small decrease in IPO underpricing. Also, a slightly larger decrease in IPO underpricing was found for the firms that both had patents and reported their IPO expenditures separately. Thus, these results indicate that firms with a higher level of innovation are “leaving less money on the table”.

(English) The R&D management system was examined in terms of legislation, managing authorities, types of support, support providers, budget and strategic documents in this thesis. In the area of strategic documents, persistent shortcomings were revealed and manifested in non-specific interconnections or overlaps. At the same time, a qualitative shift in the quality of the documents was identified. Furthermore, it was examined whether the strategic measures for the development in the field of molecular biology were fulfilled in more detail. The research was carried out on data related to targeted support, which were obtained from the R&D Information System. Two periods in the years 1995-2014 were analyzed. The structure of the second period from 2005 to 2014 was related to the structure of the first period from 1995 to 2004, which served as a reference. In relation to strategic measures, research has shown that resources have been optimized, capacities have been strengthened and infrastructure has been massively developed. Keywords research, development, innovation, targeted support, R&D policy, molecular biology

To measure the performance of research and development organizations has long been a difficult task and still is partly due to the complex nature of its processes and activities, but also since the outcome in many cases can be seen first after many years. Also, the outcome is dependent on efforts from several other business functions within an organization. There has been a shift in how organizations view R&D, from being technology-push centered, where R&D had full responsibility of all innovations, to collaborating with innovation across functions within a company. Historically, R&D has been considered to be impossible to manage and control, but as the development has taken place R&D is now aligned with an organization’s business strategy. There is a vast amount of literature on performance measurement systems with focus on R&D to access, however, the focus of that research has been on evaluating performance of an entire R&D department or a specific project and not as much can be found on how to evaluate R&D related activities, which is what this thesis centers on. The research in this thesis has been done by conducting a case study at Sandvik Materials Technology’s R&D department in Sandviken, Sweden. Three case study objects have been studied within the case study and these objects are the OCTG project, non-destructive testing and hydraulic & instrumentation tubing. The case study consisted of interviews with employees at various functions within the company, an extensive literature review as well as a review of internal documentation. The result from the case study has been the design of a performance measurement  ramework and its application to the three case study objects, illustrating that it is possible to measure the performance of R&D related activities, thus, enabling a more transparent view of what value R&D contributes with. The framework is created in a way that allows for other organizations with similar settings as the one currently in place at Sandvik Materials Technology to utilize it. Implications from the findings have an impact both from an industrial and research perspective, but also from a sustainability perspective. The industrial implication is that a framework for evaluating and illustrating the performance of a R&D organization on an activity level has been designed. Considering the research aspects, this research contributes to the identified gap in the existing body of knowledge, providing additional knowledge on performance measurement systems on an activity level. From a sustainability perspective the framework enables monitoring and supervising of important processes, which could stimulate employees to undertake necessary actions, potentially leading to reduced negative impact on the environment since a lesser amount of resources and energy is consumed. / Att mäta prestationen av forskning- och utvecklingsorganisationer har länge varit en svår uppgift, vilket det fortfarande delvis är på grund av de komplexa processer och aktiviteter som existerar. Detta beror även på att resultatet av forskning och utveckling (FoU) ej synliggörs förrän långt senare. Vidare är resultatet av FoU beroende av insatser från andra funktioner inom en organisation. Det har skett ett skifte i hur organisationer ser på forskning och utveckling, från att tidigare varit drivna av att utveckla teknologier med fullständigt ansvar för innovationer till att nu arbeta med innovation över funktionsgränserna som existerar i en organisation. Historiskt sett har FoU setts som omöjligt att styra och kontrollera men i takt med att skiftet har skett så är forskning och utveckling nu i linje med en organisations affärsstrategi. Litteratur på ämnet prestationsmätningssystem med fokus på FoU finns att tillgå, men fokus i de studierna har varit att utvärdera prestationen av hela FoU-organisationer eller specifika projekt. Desto mindre finns på ämnet hur man utvärderar FoU-relaterade aktiviteter, vilket är fokus i denna studie. Studien i detta arbete har utförts som en fallstudie på Sandvik Materials Technology’s forsknings- och utvecklingsenhet i Sandviken, Sverige. Tre fallstudieobjekt har studerats inom fallstudien och dessa objekt är OCTG-projektet, oförstörande provning och hydraulik- och instrumentrör. Fallstudien har bestått av intervjuer med anställda på diverse funktioner inom företaget och en extensiv genomgång av litteratur har gjorts samt en genomgång av intern dokumentation. Resultatet från fallstudien blev skapandet av ett ramverk för prestationsmätning och en tillämpning på de tre fallstudieobjekten, vilket syftar till att illustrera möjligheten att mäta prestationen av FoU-relaterade aktiviteter. Detta leder till en mer transparent syn på vilket värde forskning och utveckling bidrar med. Ramverket har skapats på ett sätt som möjliggör organisationer med liknande struktur som existerar på Sandvik Materials Technology att utnyttja det. Implikationerna från resultaten har en inverkan både ur ett industriellt perspektiv och ur ett forskningsperspektiv men även ur ett hållbarhetsperspektiv. Den industriella implikationen är att ett ramverk för utvärdering och synliggörande av prestationer av en forsknings- och utvecklingsorganisation på en aktivitetsnivå har skapats. Vid betraktande av forskningsperspektivet så bidrar denna studie till att fylla det identifierade gapet i kunskapsbanken genom att tillföra ytterligare kunskap av prestationsmätning på en aktivitetsnivå. Ramverket möjliggör övervakning och kontroll av viktiga processer, vilket kan motivera anställda att vidta nödvändiga åtgärder, som kan leda till reducerad negativ inverkan på miljön då en mindre mängd resurser och energi används.

Sedan upptäckten av endogen ekonomisk tillväxt under senare delen av 1980-talet har det gång på gång visats i studier att tillväxt uppstår inifrån ekonomin, där FoU är en medverkande faktor. På samma sätt har forskning och utveckling visats bidra till tillväxten med produktivitetshöjande kunskap som överförs till ekonomin. Den här uppsatsen fokuserar på digitaliseringens roll i FoU och hur den kan fungera som ett verktyg för innovation. / Since the adoption of the endogenous growth theory in the late 1980s it has time and again been shown that growth is an endogenous effect of an economic system, in which knowledge and innovation are common contributing factors. Likewise, investments conducted in Research and Development has also been demonstrated to contribute to economic growth with productivity increasing knowledge spilling over in the economy. This study focuses on the role of digtalisation in R&D and how it could be an important tool for innovation development.

Syftet med studien var att undersöka hur kommunikationen påverkar effektiviteten i produkt-och processutvecklingen i en samlokaliserad miljö. Tidigare studier har visat att det finns fördelar med samlokalisering av produkt- och processutveckling och produktion. Det påstås att det finns en indirekt relation mellan samlokalisering, prestanda och innovation. Men få djupstudier har lyft fram fördelarna med samlokalisering och samtidigt behandlat kommunikationsaspekten. Detta bildade grunden till följande frågeställning Hur påverkar kommunikationen effektiviteten i produkt- och processutveckling i en samlokaliserad miljö? För att undersöka frågeställningen gjordes en kvalitativ fallstudie bestående av tre olika typer av datainsamlingsmetoder; intervjuer i tre omgångar, en kontinuerlig undersökning och ett frågeformulär. Kommunikationsfördelarna som skapades genom att företaget var samlokaliserat bidrog till att problem kunde identifieras tidigare i processen. De gav också möjlighet för produkt och process utvecklingen att få snabbare återkoppling och kortare beslutsvägar. Genom att kommunicera på detta sätt drog man också nytta av erfarenheter och idéer från alla företagets avdelningar. Allt detta bidrog till en effektivare produkt- och processutveckling. / The purpose of this study was to examine how communication patterns affect the efficiency of product- and process development in a co–located environment. Previous studies have shown that there are a number of benefits with co-location of product- and process development and production. It is suggested that there is an indirect relationship between co-location and performance and innovativeness. However, few in depth studies have targeted the actual benefits of co-location and the aspect of communication. This was the foundation for the research question in this study. How do communication patterns affect the efficiency of product- and process development in a co –located environment? To investigate the research question, a qualitative single case study was executed including three types of data collection methods; interviews in three rounds, a continuous study and a questionnaire. The communication related benefits were shown to enable the company to identify issues earlier in the development process. The level of communication also provided the product-and process development with quicker feedback-loops and shorter decision paths. Taking advantage of the experience, ideas and "know-how" from the different departments enabled the company to benefit from all its internal resources. The communicational benefits were shown to have created a more efficient product- and process development at the case company