With global competition on the rise, all enterprises must try to develop and keep their own core competitive advantage. To compete with other global business, the role of the research and development department is becoming more important. Innovative techniques or products have the ability to become an advantage. Therefore, improvement of the R&D department becomes a significant issue in the Global Business Management field. Enhancing the creative ability of R&D employees to increase the departments performance while confronting multi-national management issues raises some interesting problems. When a foreign-based company relocates to Taiwan, or foreign R&D employees are introduced to a local company, will they bring different cultures, and new approaches to the R&D department? In either case, does the R&D department try to adjust and blend different cultures to improve performance? When culture clashes occur, does the company try to apply some strategic control to match the new culture in the business? In order to solve the above questions, this research will focus on organizational culture, operational strategy and R&D performance. Including the classification of different organizational cultures and operational strategies,. Finally, analyzing the relationship among the organizational culture, operational strategy and the R&D performance and how they influence each other. After organizing the reference research and gathering the survey results from multi-national corporations of the top 500 businesses in Taiwan, we get the following results. 1. When a business leans toward a development culture, it helps to improve the global integration of the operational strategy and to further enhance the R&D performance. 2. When a business leans toward a rational culture, it is helpful to raise the local level of the operational strategy. 3. When a business leans toward a bureaucratic culture, the nature of bureaucracy lends itself to inefficiency. 4. When a business leans toward a development culture or a cohere culture, it is helpful to increase the number of patent rights, published essays from R&D, development of new products and the shift in technique 5. Global integration in multi-national corporations is directly proportional to R&D performance. Key words: multinational corporations, organizational culture, operational stratagem & R&D performance.

According to the research of the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association in 2004 , IC design in Taiwan is becoming the second major clustering centre after America. IC design house seems to be the upcoming star in Taiwan semiconductor industry, by its highly brainstorming to create higher additional value, it is also the next leading role in hi-tech industry in Taiwan.To IC design house, the quality of employees is the key of competitiveness, therefore, only dependent on the staff's constant research and innovation, could occupy a space on the competitive market, so the reserch of management of professional human resources in IC design house seems even more important. This study adopts the in-deep interview of qualitative reserch, including six RD engineers, four product engineers and five human resources personnel as the research objects.The main purpose is to understand what the employees truely demand in IC design house? How is the operation of human resource management practice and the expectation to Human Resource Department? How the professional personnel of human resources understand the idea and demand of employees, make a right management system and offer the best welfare measure. Through the interview materials, along with domestic, international documents, the results come out as following: 1. The demand of RD engineers and product engineers learning development opportunity / excellent manager / good working environment / understand the employees demand / limitless creation and innovation / the balance of work and life 2. The expectation of RD engineers and product engineers to Human Resource Department to be intercommunication channel / complete training program / attract and retain outstanding talents / strengthen professional ability more actively 3. The contribution of Human Resource Department of IC design house to Human Resource Managemant Recruit high-quality talent / administration efficiency / salary and welfare policy / incentive system to keep talent / promote innovation ability of employees / complete training program / build a common vision /build a high-quality working environment / intercommunication channel / understand the employees truly need 4. IC Design House Human Resource Management Model (1)recruit and employ: recruit channel: manpower bank/ employee recommendation/ campus recruit / national defence labor recruit procedure: recruit by HR or department director employ characteristic: good team player/ dedicated/ learning spirit employ term: response ability/ professional ability/ communication coordinate ability/ innovation ability (2)salary and benefit: attractive payment/ cash allowance/ meal allowance/ entertainment/ group insurance/ society safety/ retirement plan (3)training and development: e-learning/ invite outside instructor/ lessons by senior employees/ seminar/ training plan evaluation/ training result check and accept (4)performance evaluation: fair/ justice/ team performance/ individual performance (5)labor relations: interaction frequently/ diversified encourage program/ resignation management

Everyone has to make different choices when they are in different career stages. Individual choices for study subject and occupation lead to individual career directions and future developments. So this research aims to listen to individual life stories and influence factors through narrative analysis to understand why R&D people choose R&D engineer as their occupation. This research applies narrative analysis of Qualitative research by using intensive interviews to collect life experience of each participant. Individual story style showed individual decision experience and related analysis factors. This research aims to focus on seven participants concerning the issue of career decision making of R&D people in the high technology industries. In order to select a model containing participants¡¦ decision making processes to each of their selecting factors are adequately analyzed with respect to abstracted issues and messages based on their experiences sharing.

The approach of the age of knowledge economy and prosperous growth of IT makes knowledge become one of the most important core resources. The knowledge is also organizations' key point of seeking for survival and development. Knowledge economy emphasizes on transferring ¡§knowledge¡¨ into ¡§profit¡¨ instead of knowledge itself. Therefore, knowledge application is more essential than knowledge possession. At rapid digital age, knowledge management becomes key point of core competence. Hence, this study, knowledge management as variables, will discuss if knowledge management will upgrade the achievement of R&D performance of human capital and organizational culture. This study used questionnaire. This study used convenience sampling to select 1,517 high-tech industries as subjects from Taiwan Industrial Park Directory (published by Taipei County Exhibition Hall, 2005) and the appendix of high-tech industry yearbook (published from 2002 to 2005) as population. Valid questionnaires were 140 copies. This study used LISREL for data analysis and the result are listed as following: 1. Investment in human capital management helps efficiently improve R&D performance. The functional activities of human resources, such as recruit, maintenance and encouragement, connect organizations with employees effectively. Enhancement of employees' contribution, promise and encouragement strengthen value and uniqueness of human resources and also produce remarkable progress of R&D performance. 2. Execution of organizational culture, including participation, strategic vision which aids to organization's evolution, team work and organizational structure, helps to improve significantly for R&D performance. 3. Promotion and execution of knowledge management play as important mediators in organizations. The efficiency of R&D performance in human capital and organizational culture will be enhanced through the mediation caused by execution of knowledge management. 4. The amount of enterprises' employees makes diversity of performance of human capital and knowledge management. The enterprises that own 2,000 employees and above have more remarkable performance in human capital and knowledge management than the enterprises that own fewer employees. It means, large-scale enterprises have more competence because of more cost reduction, which improves quality of products and customer services. Regarding knowledge management, different amount of enterprises' employees also makes diversity of employees' knowledge creation and collection. The result of this study indicates that large-scale enterprises are more capable of invention and acquiring latest knowledge.

This dissertation assumes the R&D investment future cash flows of a firm which follows an arithmetic Brownian motion and Poisson (jump) process. This study evaluates the R&D investment decisions under different market structure while considering the stochastic impact scales are the normal, negative exponential, and Laplace distributions, respectively. The first model of this dissertation aims to build monopoly R&D investment decisions under different stochastic impact scales. The result of this study is different from Cossin et al. (2002), since it shows that the outcome of Cossin et al. (2002) has underestimated decision values in assessing lump-sum investment, staging investment, and liquidation decisions. Sensitivity analysis reveals the following: (1) the positive relation parameter for the lump-sum investment is the cash flow growth rate of project, frequency of jump event, time of jump event, mean and deviation of normal distribution, and initial cost. (2) The positive relation parameter for liquidation decisions is the cash flow growth rate of project, frequency of jump event, time of jump event, and mean and deviation of normal distribution. The second model of this dissertation extends the monopoly to duopoly, and it aims to build the duopoly R&D investment decisions under different stochastic impact scales. The result of the study accords with Tsekrekos (2003) that with more uncertainty, there are more duopoly investment thresholds. Sensitivity analysis reveals the following: (1) the positive relation parameter for the leading R&D investment thresholds is deviation, frequency of jump event, discount rate, investment cost, and mean and deviation of normal distribution, while the negative relation parameter is the growth rate and market share. (2) The positive relation parameter for the follower R&D investment thresholds is deviation, market share, frequency of jump event, discount rate, investment cost, and mean and deviation of normal distribution, while the negative relation parameter is the growth rate. The third model of this dissertation extends to oligopoly, and it aims to build the oligopoly R&D investment decisions under different stochastic impact scales. The result of the study accords with the expectancy of Grenadier (2002), that while other things being equal, the more industry's competition degree, the lower oligopoly investment thresholds. Namely the higher the numbers of firms in an industry, those oligopoly firms have more incentives to invest early. Sensitivity analysis shows the following: (1) The positive relation parameter for the oligopoly R&D investment thresholds is deviation, frequency of jump event, discount rate, unitary investment cost, and mean and oligopoly supply, while the negative relation parameter is the growth rate and market share. (2) The negative relation parameter is the number of firms in the industry, growth rate, and demand elasticity.

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In this study we explored the relationship between absorptive capacity, knowledge sourcing strategy, alliance forms, and firm performance. Based on the literature and case study, we proposed the concept of knowledge sourcing strategy in alliance contexts, which can be categorized into two types¡Xknowledge internalization strategy and knowledge access strategy. From organizational learning perspective, we argue that a firm¡¦s absorptive capacity has a positive influence on knowledge internalization strategy, and accordingly a firm¡¦s governance choices of alliances are also influenced. Firm¡¦s R&D performance are also included in theoretical model in order to generate further managerial implications. Instead of using conventional regression method, we adopt Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to conduct path-analysis, in that SEM is well suited to verifying causal models. We argue that firms should seek a better alignment between absorptive capacity, knowledge sourcing strategy, alliance forms, and firm performance. Our arguments are supported by empirical analysis of a sample of 148 R&D alliances involving computer, telecommunication, LCD/LED, semiconductor, and electronic machinery industry.

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

<p>According to the Globalizations Council the most important task Sweden has is to assess the opportunities and challenges presented by the global economy to a small, open country like Sweden. There has been dual competition, some has been able to sell the resource services of human and physical knowledge capital, and others offering to sell unskilled labor at wages way below Swedish standards. This thesis will examine the changes in market position in the manufacturing sector, and how comparative advantage and the role of technology have impacted the changes.</p><p>The empirical analysis is based on the relative international competitiveness index to examine how market position in different sectors has changed during the time-period 1985-2003. In the regression measures for human and physical capital has been included as well as R&D expenditure for both Sweden and the OECD countries.</p><p>The results show that the changes in market position for most products are relatively small. What can be concluded is that it is not the sector as a whole that experience improving market positions instead it is certain products such as pharmaceutical, sulphate and electronic components among others.</p><p>Sweden ranks very high in terms of resources dedicated to production of new technology and there are proofs on both side of the "Swedish Paradox"; which states that high technology exports are low given the high R&D investment.</p><p>The result also indicates that Sweden has a labor-intensive disadvantage, i.e. indications that the market position for industries with high total capital-intensity has increased.</p>

<p>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.</p> / <p>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.</p>