The responsibility of industry towards society and the environment is a much discussed topic, both in academia and in business. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has recently emerged as a new concept with the potential to advance this discourse in light of two major challenges industry is facing today. The first relates to the accelerating race to innovate in order to stay competitive in a rapidly changing world. The second concerns the need to maintain public trust in industry through innovations that generate social value in addition to economic returns. This Special Issue provides empirical and conceptual contributions that explore corporate motivations to adopt RRI, the state of implementation of concrete RRI practices, the role of stakeholders in responsible innovation processes, as well as drivers and barriers to the further diffusion of RRI in industry. Overall, these contributions highlight the relevance of RRI for firms of different sizes and sectors. They also provide insights and suggestions for managers, policymakers and researchers wishing to engage with responsibility in innovation. This editorial summarizes the most pertinent conclusions across the individual articles published in this Special Issue and concludes by outlining some fruitful avenues for future research in this space.

This thesis consists of four self-contained papers on job turnover, productivity and state- local finance. Paper [I] deals with the determinants of the rate of job turnover defined as the change in distribution of employment between and within industries in Swedish manufacturing. The rate of inter-industry job turnover is driven by the dispersion of profit changes among industries. Shifts in international competitiveness among industries seem to play a central role in the explanation of this pattern. The rate of intra-industry job turnover has been higher in industries with many small plants, low profit margins and high import penetration. Paper [II] analyzes the impact of openness on total factor productivity (TFP) growth. Using Swedish industry level data the results show that economically integrated industries tend to be more engaged in research and development (R&D) and have more entry and exit activity than other industries. The domestic R&D intensity does not contribute to the TFP growth rate. Instead, the results imply that openness to international markets, which helps facilitate technology spillovers, has a significant impact on the growth rate. There is also some evidence suggesting that producers exiting the market are less productive, implying that such exits will increase the average productivity of the industry concerned. The purpose of Paper [III] is to design and implement a test of whether the external effect from tax base sharing among local and regional governments is internalized via the intergovernmental transfer system. The test is based on the observation that if the external effect is internalized, an increase in the income tax rate at one level of government will induce the other level to reduce its income tax rate by the corresponding amount, leaving the effective tax rate unchanged. By using panel data for the Swedish local and regional public sectors, we estimate the reaction function for the local income tax rate. The results imply that an increase in the regional income tax rate induces the municipalities in the region to decrease their income tax rates. In addition, we are able to reject the null hypothesis that the external effect from tax base sharing is internalized. Paper [IV] concerns risk-sharing, in terms of how the central government smooths personal income among municipalities via the tax and transfer systems. Using Swedish panel data, the results show that the national tax and transfer systems mitigate an adverse shock to income of one krona so that disposable income falls by 67 öre, on average. However, there are large differences across regions, where the effect on disposable income varies between 32 and 78 öre in the krona. / digitalisering@umu

In ICT industry, firms’ financial prosperity and growth are highly depended on innovation. The innovation provides competitive advantage and high performance for the ICT companies. The purpose of the paper is to study effect that the companies’ internal resources, experience on the market, investments in innovation and business environment have on their performance. The sample includes 22 ICT companies from North America, EU and Asia region. The examined data cover period from 2011 to 2015. The companies’ annual reports and USPTO were used as the sources of the data. The mixed research method is chosen to reach the study’s objectives. The study is analysed with help of DEA and Balanced scorecard performance measurement methods. Organizational learning theory and Resource based theory are applied to answer the research questions in the study. The outputs of performance are categories such as assets and competencies, innovative activities, suppliers and customer relations, and employees and management. These categories are presented by a variety of indicators such as assets turnover, labour productivity ratio, debt ratio, SG&A costs ratio and number of published patents. The factors such as companies’ size, age, investments in R&D and business environment have significant impact on the performance of innovative activities. The results suggest that the large established ICT companies are less efficient in studied categories than the smaller and younger ICT firms. Moreover, the younger smaller companies show higher efficiency even in terms of such outcomes as R&D intensity and number of published patents. The results are consistent with the findings attained in previous studies from the same scientific field.

The aim of this study is to define and describe a scientific problem solving capability to be used by the Institute for Maritime Technology (IMT) in its Decision Support Domain in order to provide a scientific support service to decision makers in the South African Navy. Cognisance is given to the fact that the context within which this scientific service functions is of a complex nature, and so are some of the problems which the Decision Support Domain are required to study. For this reason a methodology developed by the proponents of complexity modelling for management and organisational science, namely to approach the problem through “Perspective Filters” is used. The aim is therefore to identify emergent patterns in the development of various disciplines commonly utilised for problem solving. Their respective developments during the twentieth century are studied with this stated aim in mind. Scientific method is seen to be a dominant perspective in this pursuit. The outcome of the study is a proposed generic, pluralist scientific problem solving process which provides a stable definition of such a service despite its constantly changing environment. This greatly enhances the robustness of the service, which makes it cost-effective to develop. The definition of pluralism which is used in this study, and which underpins the definition of the capability, differs from other current dominant views of pluralism in that it upholds the realist aim of science. Although this process is developed in the specific context of IMT, its generic nature makes it a general knowledge technology for any such a service with the aim of providing a scientific service, not limited to the context within which it is developed. / Dissertation (MSc (Technology Management))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Graduate School of Technology Management (GSTM) / unrestricted

Research realised by the public sector leads to new knowledge. To achieve economic growth of the country, it is necessary that the results of such research could be useful for innovation in the private sector. It can be achieved by cooperation of both sectors. The government of the Czech Republic supports such cooperation since 2014, through the option for businesses to include costs of R&D services and intangible results of R&D purchased from public universities or public research institutions in the tax deduction for research and development. It can be also better used by small and medium enterprises, but the total amount of this tax incentive decreased in 2014 as compared with 2013. The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyse the reasons for the low utilization rate of tax deduction for research and development and low levels of cooperation on R&D between enterprises and public sector, primarily universities.

Diploma thesis is concerning questions about tax inventives for research and development. Theoretical part is defining research and development and describing individual possibilities of support for research and development with emphasis on indirect support and its tools. Core of practical part is comparison of approach to R&D expenditures of research and development in selected tax systems of OECD countries and present circumstances in Czech Republic. Outcome of this thesis is several recommendations for czech tax policy in area for support for research and development.

According to AK and R&D models, permanent rise in investment rates and the growing number or researchers should have permanent effects on growth rate. Charles Jones (1995a) used the lack of long-term movements in GDP and productivity growth to challenge the validity of these models. The aim of this paper is to empirically re-test these models of endogenous growth. The author follows the methods proposed by Ch. Jones (1995a) and extends the analysis for variables that could offset the movements in growth rates. The results show no support for the tested models.

Abstract The importance of investments in R&D was proved in several papers. These investments can influence innovative activity, which in turn, can spurs economic growth. Therefore, it was chosen to analyze the relation between amount of real expenditures of Structural funds of EU intended to R&D acitivities in CR and innovative activities, measured by number of submitted national patent applications by czech applicants in this diploma thesis. There are observed a direction of the impact, its approximate size and signifikance within several variations of models and chosen time lags. There is also compared the influence of real expenditures from EU funds and from czech resources. The results of this thesis shows, that there exists a positive relation between the two major variables, real expenditures from EU resources and number of submitted national patent applications in CR. It was also found out, that the size of the impact is not large, nonetheless, this impact was significant in a few cases. Results also confirm, that the impact of the expenditures is lagged by some time. Finally, the real expenditures of CR have the opposite direction of the impact and they are significant in all estimates.

With the growing competition both on domestic and on international markets, SMEs face very specific challenges to sustain in their activity. A strategy to gain a competitive edge can be to internationalize innovative activities. In this work the internationalization of innovation is reflected in the context of SMEs. This is done in the first step by making a connection between research on SMEs, on Internationalization and on R&D and subsequently building a theoretical framework. In the second step, the innovative activity of a Swiss firm's Czech subsidiary is investigated on a case-study basis from the perspective of the suggested theoretical framework. The main contribution of this work to research is that it puts in a research field, which is dominated by large enterprises, the focus on SMEs.

The importance of research and development (R&D) as a resource of knowledge that are of a key issue for many firms to achieve and sustain competitive advantage has been extensively debated in R&D management literature and also in practice theory approach to management accounting. There is a little research on practical implementation of the R&D performance management, R&D projects management. Strategic management accounting (SMA) has rather omitted the constant themes of managerial practise such as organisational resources, innovation or R&D management. Also the implementation of Balanced Scorecard (BSC) and management of small and medium size enterprises (SME) has been neglected by researchers. The presented dissertation addresses the above mentioned limitations, therefore the main objective was identified as creating a framework of R&D performance management in SME, while dissertation is focused on information basis of SMA techniques particularly BSC. The main objective was divided in the following sub-objectives: identify the key problems of R&D management in the target population of SME in the Czech Republic, identify which SMA techniques are used in R&D performance management setting and compare the results with the findings of Donnelley (2009) in Bremser & Barsky (2004) and finally outline specific R&D metrics in a BSC framework. The research questions were based on the reference framework underlying the research. The two first sub-objectives were solved using data derived from questionnaire responses from the target population of SME in the Czech Republic. The key findings are: the vast majority of examined SME use the same metrics to measure R&D performance as found Donnelly (2000) in Bremser & Barsky (2004) such as number of approved projects ongoing, R&D spending as percentage of sales, current percentage of sales of new products, percentage of budget resources dedicated to R&D. Most of the examined enterprises use budgets and costing. The questionnaires also mapped problematic issues related to R&D performance management, while the results indicated as most problematic the following topics: inadequate organizational structure and insufficient competence settings, poor system of R&D project evaluation that neither contribute to reach the strategic nor financial goals nor to balance the R&D long term and short term objectives. The third sub-objective found support within the investigated firm that upheld the BSC implementation process suggested by Bremser & Barsky (2004). The process was slightly modified. Analysis of existing measures of R&D performance was added. One of the most intriguing findings is the practical implementation of SMA techniques that shall support greater impact of SMA in SME practice.