Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 352-368).

by Thomas J. Allen and Alan R. Fusfeld. / Leaf number 17 omitted in paging. The research reported in this paper was supported by grants from the Office of Science Information Service, National Science Foundation and the General Electric Foundation. / Bibliography: leaf [40-41].

M.Ing. (Engineering Management) / It is apparent that understanding the link between the role of innovation in competitiveness and economic development is essential. This is because innovation ultimately holds the key to addressing the most pressing social and human challenges of nations. In the past, some organizations viewed research and development (R & D) as an intangible process that is difficult to manage and measure. However, the upsurge in enabling technologies such as the internet is changing such perceptions of managing R & D processes, which is now moving from a technology-oriented model to one that is more interactive and collaborative. Moreover, organizations that have a clear understanding of R & D management have great successes in exploiting it to speed up the commercialization of new technologies that enable them to achieve numerous competitive benefits such as first-to-market advantages, greater market shares for their innovations, premium prices and dominant designs relative to their counterparts. While it is evident that there is increased focus on fine-tuning R & D management processes, the majority of these efforts were confined to the USA, Europe, Asia and other developed economies, with limited developments in the less developed economies like those in Africa. This dissertation explores the five generations of R & D management practices and attempts to predict the best practices that managers will adopt in the R & D sixth generation. The findings suggest that the sixth generation will be characterized by greater multi-disciplinary approaches emphasizing cross-functional communication, collaboration, as well as greater inclusion of stakeholders such as suppliers, customers and partners in the full life cycle of R & D process.

This thesis extends the literature on institutional accounting by providing a new channel---proprietary information leakage between competitors---through which institutions affect accounting attributes and information disclosure. Weak property rights protection exacerbates outflow of proprietary information on operation, thus reduces managers' incentive to disclose financial information and other operation related information since the disclosed information will be helpful for competitors to learn more about proprietary information on operation of the firm. The channel is built with two links. One is the link between property rights protection and R&D spillovers, which proxy for proprietary information disclosure, and the other is the link between R&D spillovers and transparency. Empirical results show that R&D spillovers are negatively associated with regional property rights protection. In addition, I find that innovation output depends less on in house R&D investment and more on R&D spillovers from competitors in regions with weak property rights protection than in regions with strong protection and that the level of R&D expenditures is positively associated with property rights protection. Some evidence is found that firms with more R&D spillovers are more likely to have opaque earnings and disclose less firm-specific information. The relationship is stronger in regions with weak property rights protection than in regions with strong protection, indicating that firms are more likely to utilize opacity to prevent proprietary information leakage when R&D spillovers are large. / Yu, Xin. / Adviser: Joseph P. H. Fan. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: 2123. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-79). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

Thesis (doctoral)--Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 2002. / Cover title. Includes bibliographical references (p. [285]-300).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (February 17, 2010) Includes bibliographical references

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

This dissertation consists of two essays dealing with two selected aspects of the investment decision process faced by individuals and corporations. In the first essay, I develop a model of a multiple-stage patent race between two rival firms to study the impact of technological competition on value and return dynamics of Research and Development (R&D) ventures. The model describes a firm's capital budgeting decision process in the presence of technical uncertainty, market uncertainty and preemption. I characterize the equilibrium of the race and derive optimal investment strategies. Analysis of the equilibrium firm value shows that the premium accruing to the technology "leader" is larger than the loss accruing to the technology "lagger" and that the marginal effect of success/failure is increasing in the uncertainty of cash flows. Risk premia demanded by an ownership claim to competing R&D ventures (i) increase when a rival pulls ahead in the race and (ii) are lower when rivals are "closer" to each other in the development process. Compared to the case where rival firms merge, R&D competition reduces the industry value and lowers the expected completion time for a project. The erosion in value, due to preemption, is higher when firms are "neck-and-neck" and in early stages of development. Numerical simulations show that, in later stages of development, risk premia demanded by the perfectly collusive market are generally lower than risk premia demanded by a portfolio of competing firms. The opposite is true in early stages of development, which suggests that R&D competition may actually lower the cost of early stage financing. In the second essay, I solve a portfolio allocation problem for an individual who can select between two risky assets and a riskless asset in the presence of capital gains taxes. I treat capital gains taxes as a form of endogenous transaction costs. Using this analogy, I characterize the trading strategy for the two assets, and study the effect of taxes on optimal portfolio diversification. The optimal strategy contains a "no trade" region and a dynamic tax-timing option. I find that the diversification costs due to capital gains taxes are substantial and the value of the tax deferral option is decreasing in the correlation among assets and in the volatility of the risky assets. By comparing the solution of the multiple asset portfolio problem to the one of an investor who can trade only in a mutual fund I am able to measure the value of the flexibility option of the multi-asset case as well as the cost of mutual fund turnover. Finally, I show that imposing a wash-sale constraint generates discontinuous portfolio rebalancing strategies.

No description available.

During the Second World War science came to play a large role in the British government's plans for postwar reconstruction of industry. The planners sought to improve industry's labour productivity and capacity for RandD. They drew on the consensus which had developed among scientists, industrialists and politicians favouring a great increase in state aid to universities and industrial RandD and increased government direction of research. The postwar Labour government, impressed with scientists' contributions to the war effort and faced with grave economic difficulties, was eager to enlist science in raising industrial output. By 1951, however, it had implemented few new programmes in this area. More money was being spent on the pre-existing Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and industry's co-operative Research Associations; the universities had doubled their output; the National Research and Development Corporation had begun in 1949; some publicity campaigns had raised public awareness of productivity's significance; and the economy, in the postwar boom, was performing much better than prewar. But overall the Attlee government did much less to raise industry's scientific level than it had planned. Almost every new programme was inadequately funded and staffed, and the few which survived had no realistic chance of reaching into individual factories to achieve the scientific renaissance which was necessary to return Britain to the front rank, by international standards, of innovation and industrial performance. The thesis examines that portion of civil science policy which aimed to improve industrial RandD and productivity, from the planning stage during the Coalition through implementation by the Attlee government. After an introductory chapter, Chapter 2 covers the work of wartime ministerial and official reconstruction committees; party differences and business opposition meant that reforms favouring a greater government role in RandD and industry generally were shelved until postwar. Chapter 3 examines the Attlee government's efforts to improve industrial RandD, particularly the formation of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy, a failed attempt to create a British MIT, and several schemes, mostly unavailing, to vitalise DSIR, the RAs and private RandD. Chapter 4 examines postwar productivity policy, particularly the work of the Board of Trade, the scientifically-orientated Committee on Industrial Productivity, various government publicity campaigns, and the Anglo-American Council on Productivity. Chapter 5 briefly sketches post-1951 developments and finds that there has been little basic change in the policies suggested for arresting British industry's technical decline relative to its competitors, despite recurrent disappointment with the results of those policies.