We develop a theoretical model based on Tirole (2006) where the nature of large investments, namely capital expenditure, research and development and working capital, affects the financing choice during the investment period. We use a sample comprised by American companies in the 1980-2017 period. We employ several econometric and graphic analyses to test our hypotheses. Our results are robust and consistent with Trade-off Theory predictions. Our model\'s propositions are empirically verified for all cases: (i) In CAPEX projects, firms use equity to finance the initial stages and debt to finance the last stages; (ii) throughout the R&D investment period, firms decrease debt and use equity to finance the project. Additionally, for large working capital projects, we show that firms use internal resources in the initial periods and, then, switch the source to debt, aiming the reduction of the deviation from the target leverage. / Neste trabalho, desenvolvemos um modelo teórico baseado em Tirole (2006) em que a natureza de grandes projetos de investimentos, a saber: CAPEX, Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento e Capital de Giro, afeta as decisões de financiamento durante o período de investimentos. Nossa amostra é composta por empresas americanas e refere-se ao período de 1980 a 2017. Nós adotamos uma série de análises econométricas e gráficas para testar nossas hipóteses. Os resultados são robustos e consistentes com a teoria do Trade-off. As proposições do modelo são empiricamente verificadas: (i) nos projetos de CAPEX, as empresas usam capital próprio para financiar o projeto em seus estágios iniciais e dívida para os estágios finais; (ii) durante um investimento de P\\&D, empresas diminuem seu endividamento, financiando o projeto com recursos próprios externos. Adicionalmente, para grandes investimentos em capital de giro, nossos resultados sugerem que as firmas usam recursos internos durante os estágios iniciais do projeto e, em seguida, trocam a fonte de financiamento para dívida, objetivando a redução do desvio em direção ao endividamento alvo.

Esta tese analisa o processo de organização do trabalho de pesquisa e desenvolvimento de inovações, com foco nas competências requeridas dos diferentes profissionais envolvidos, tanto no ambiente interno como externo das organizações. Assim, o objetivo desta tese é analisar como a organização do trabalho de pesquisa e desenvolvimento de inovações se relaciona com as competências requeridas para realizar as atividades, exigindo, em muitos casos, que as empresas busquem as competências não desenvolvidas internamente, junto a empresas e instituições externas, para garantir o alcance de resultados. A metodologia adotada envolveu primeiramente a revisão da literatura nos temas de P&D de inovações, modelos de organização do trabalho, gestão de competências, aprendizagem organizacional, para entender a relação entre os construtos. Escolheu-se uma abordagem exploratória de natureza descritivo-qualitativa, com análise de múltiplos casos. Os dados foram obtidos por meio de entrevistas em profundidade, aplicadas de forma presencial, através de roteiro semi-estruturado, junto a diretores, gestores e coordenadores da área de inovação, que foram analisados através de cruzamento com a teoria. Para compor um quadro mais abrangente sobre a questão de pesquisa foi realizado um survey com profissionais da área de P&D de diferentes empresas através de questionário autoaplicado. Buscou-se analisar como as empresas procedem na combinação de diferentes competências para organizar o processo de P&D de inovações, um processo extremamente complexo e que envolve grandes investimentos por parte das empresas. Os resultados apontam que há vantagens e desvantagens em buscar competências externas através de parcerias, contratos, acordos de cooperação, com instituições públicas e privadas. A pesquisa também revelou que as parcerias ou acordos de cooperação variam entre os setores e entre as empresas, dependendo da cultura própria de cada organização; de forma geral as dificuldades são maiores nas parcerias com instituições públicas. Por fim, os resultados mostram que as competências requeridas na P&D de inovações podem mudar ao longo do tempo e por isso, as empresas não conseguem desenvolver todas as competências internamente ou acham mais oportuno buscar estas competências já desenvolvidas por outros atores do ambiente externo, complementando as competências internas de seus pesquisadores. Além disso, as empresas conseguem ganho de escala e redução de custos com pessoal e com a estrutura. / This thesis examines the process of work organization in research and development of innovations, focusing on the required competencies of the different professionals engaged in both the internal and external environment of the organization. The objective of this work is to analyze how the work organization of the research and development of innovations is related to the competencies required to perform activities. It requires, in many cases, that companies search for the skills not developed internally in other companies and institutions to ensure the achievement of results. The research begins with a review of the literature in the areas of Research and Development (R&D), models of work organization, competencies management and organizational learning, to understand the relationship between the constructs. An exploratory and descriptive research method of multiple cases study was chosen. Data were gathered through in-depth interviews, apply in person, through semi-structured script, along with directors, managers and coordinators in the area of innovation, which were analyzed by crossing with the theory. To form a more comprehensive picture of the research question a survey was conducted with professionals in R&D of different companies through self-administered questionnaire. We sought to analyze how companies are making the combination of different skills to organize the process of R&D innovation, a highly complex and that involves large investments by companies. The results show that there are advantages and disadvantages to search external expertise through partnerships, contracts and cooperative agreements with public and private institutions. The survey also revealed that partnerships or cooperation agreements vary between sectors and between firms, depending on the particular culture of the organization. Generally, the difficulties are greater in partnerships with public institutions. Finally, the results show that the required competences in R&D innovations can change over time and therefore companies cannot develop all the skills internally or find it appropriate to seek these skills already developed by other actors in the external environment, complementing internal expertise of its researchers. In addition, companies can gain scale and reduce costs with personnel and structure.

We develop a theoretical model based on Tirole (2006) where the nature of large investments, namely capital expenditure, research and development and working capital, affects the financing choice during the investment period. We use a sample comprised by American companies in the 1980-2017 period. We employ several econometric and graphic analyses to test our hypotheses. Our results are robust and consistent with Trade-off Theory predictions. Our model\'s propositions are empirically verified for all cases: (i) In CAPEX projects, firms use equity to finance the initial stages and debt to finance the last stages; (ii) throughout the R&D investment period, firms decrease debt and use equity to finance the project. Additionally, for large working capital projects, we show that firms use internal resources in the initial periods and, then, switch the source to debt, aiming the reduction of the deviation from the target leverage. / Neste trabalho, desenvolvemos um modelo teórico baseado em Tirole (2006) em que a natureza de grandes projetos de investimentos, a saber: CAPEX, Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento e Capital de Giro, afeta as decisões de financiamento durante o período de investimentos. Nossa amostra é composta por empresas americanas e refere-se ao período de 1980 a 2017. Nós adotamos uma série de análises econométricas e gráficas para testar nossas hipóteses. Os resultados são robustos e consistentes com a teoria do Trade-off. As proposições do modelo são empiricamente verificadas: (i) nos projetos de CAPEX, as empresas usam capital próprio para financiar o projeto em seus estágios iniciais e dívida para os estágios finais; (ii) durante um investimento de P\\&D, empresas diminuem seu endividamento, financiando o projeto com recursos próprios externos. Adicionalmente, para grandes investimentos em capital de giro, nossos resultados sugerem que as firmas usam recursos internos durante os estágios iniciais do projeto e, em seguida, trocam a fonte de financiamento para dívida, objetivando a redução do desvio em direção ao endividamento alvo.

Planned obsolescence refers to the situation where a company has too high an incentive to create a new product that renders the old durable goods non-compatible or obsolete. Does this incentive persist when the firm can choose what quality level the new product has, instead of simply introducing a new product of a given improved quality? Assuming the outcome of innovation is quality increase in next periods, this dissertation focuses on the effect of planned obsolescence in relation to a monopolist’s R&D investment and quality choices. The monopolist is not choosing whether or not to introduce a new product, but rather how much quality the new product should have, or in other words, how long the continuous R&D investment should last. When a minor evolution (i.e. lower quality improvement) and a major revolution (i.e. higher quality improvement) of durable goods are mutually exclusive, for a certain range of R&D investment cost, a monopolist is found to have too low an incentive to introduce the major revolution. This situation is defined as planned obsolescence of quality. The reason for such a behavior is time inconsistency, i.e. a monopolist’s failure to commit to its original profit-maximizing quality strategy once it enters the latter stage of the game. However if evaluated from a social planner’s perspective, planned obsolescence of quality, or the lack of commitment, turns out to be beneficial in alleviating the problem of socially excessive quality at least partially. Once it can be perceived that the monopolist will not commit to its original optimal quality choice, a new discrepancy would emerge between the monopolist and a social planner. It is still beneficial for a social planner to intervene for certain ranges of R&D investment cost. Under such circumstances, R&D subsidies may be considered to induce the monopolist to move out of the range of discrepancy, provided that the gain in social welfare is larger than the cost of subsidy. This cost is smaller when the monopolist’s marginal production cost is smaller. / acase@tulane.edu

This study explores perceptions regarding the existence and influence of occupational subcultures on commercialisation outcomes in four Australian hybrid industry-research organisations. The thesis proposition is that occupational subcultures exist within Australian Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) and impact commercialisation outcomes; the distinctly different knowledge and skills that provide reason for research and commercial groups to collaborate, may simultaneously create obstacles to communication and cooperation. Understanding and considering the impact of occupational cultures that underpin the actions and decisions taken by member organisations and individuals, may be important in hybrid industry-research organisations. The findings of this study extend and challenge some of the management practices recommended by extant innovation research. In particular, the finding that process management techniques functioned to ease the transition from exploration to exploitation activities during commercialisation in one CRC contradicts advice to isolate exploration activities from process management. Directions for future research include the investigation of temporal orientations in research and commercial occupational subcultures in the context of commercialisation in hybrid-industry research organisations. Temporal attributes encompass planning horizons, mono and polychronicity, and attributes towards pace and punctuality. Additionally, the findings regarding the impact of argumentation styles upon commercialisation justify further research to examine different national settings, industry sectors and occupational communities. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The present study attempted to investigate the information needs/information seeking behaviour of health researchers at the National Institute of Health Research and Development, Ministry of Health, Indonesia. Its objective was to identify the relationship between information needs/information seeking behaviour and the characteristics of those health professionals. Those characteristics include institution to which health professionals belonged, institution geographic location, level of appointment, level of education, and work experience. Research was carried out through survey by using a questionnaire. This survey obtained a response rate of 92 percent from a sample of 131 health professionals. Their information needs/information seeking behaviour were correlated with their characteristics to determine relationships, and the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. Frequency distribution, chi-square analysis, and descriptive analysis were used to obtain the results. The study found that the health information available did not match the health professionals' needs and that there was strong demand by these personnel for automated information services. It also found that total hours reading per week was significantly related to level of appointment, level of education, and work experience at other institutions. The perceived usefulness of journals as information sources was significantly related to institution, geographic location, level of appointment, level of education and work experience at other institutions. Government publications and statistical data as a source of information were found to be related significantly to institution and geographic location. There was also a relationship between the perceived value of reference books and work experience at the current institution. The usefulness of library catalogues as a guide to information was found to be related significantly to institution and geographic location, as was the usefulness of abstracting and indexing services to level of education. Frequency of visiting libraries was significantly related to institution, geographic location and level of appointment. The membership of professional organizations and obtaining useful information from friends, colleagues or personal contact were found to be significantly related to level of education. The study concludes with recommendations and suggestions for further research.

Considering the continuous design activities that are performed throughout the design projects, design students go through several stages of decision makings, and sometimes they experience problematic situations in between consecutive supervisory meetings. Revealing all experiences during the discussions with supervisors, thus communicating the ideas could be sometimes difficult. In order to provide a better guidance, it is also important for supervisors to understand students&rsquo / process in between these meetings. There are available tools used in the fields like education or health in order to monitor an individual&rsquo / s daily life in relation to the context (e.g. time, place, activity) and personal circumstances (e.g. emotions, feelings, ideas). These tools are developed based on experience sampling method (ESM), a research method focus on collecting self-reported data from participants in order to measure their daily life experiences, especially during a long period of time. Since the target group and experience has different characteristics for each context, design of experience sampling tools are also gaining importance to address these specific experience according to individuals&rsquo / needs and expectations. Aiming at assisting design students to do regular self-reporting on their experiences, this study presents a background research for designing experience sampling tools that would be used by students and supervisors to keep track of students&rsquo / experiences throughout design projects. In this sense, this study intends assisting students self-reporting activities, translate the main design requirements of experience sampling tools into the context of design projects, as well as revealing guidelines for the future implications of ESM tools in design education

Why China emphasize on the development of electronics industry? Does it work? This paper analyzes the FDI policy of China¡¦s strategic industry, especially electronics industry. To maintain high economic growth, China treats electronics industry as strategic industry to upgrade other industries by its information and communication technology. Electronics industry, however, is weak on key technologies and components itself, not to mention technology upgrading. The result of this research is helpful on understanding the advantages and disadvantages China brings to foreign-invested companies in the near future. Besides, the result can be used as a China investment manual.

Despite the huge sum of money that is being spent on research and development (R & D) on yearly basis by firms, very few empirical studies exist to shed more lights about the effects of this practice on firm performance. However, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in their publication of International Accounting Standard (IAS) 38, require that expenditures incurred during R & D should either be expensed in the statement of comprehensive income or capitalized as an intangible asset in the statement of financial position provided certain criteria are fulfilled (IASB, 2012, p. 1045).Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of expensed R & D and/or capitalized R & D on firm performance METHOD: Data for the study was collected from the audited financial statements of firms listed at the London Stock Exchange as well as from the website of this stock market. Two sampling techniques were utilized in the study; namely stratified sampling and random sampling. Stratified sampling technique was used to stratify the companies into various industries while random sampling was used to randomly select firms that are engaged in R & D from each of these industries. The final sample consisting of 52 firms gave a total of 260 observations for a period of 5 years between December 31st, 2007 to December 31st, 2011.Expensed R & D and capitalized R & D were obtained by taking the averages of statement of comprehensive income R & D to Revenue and statement of financial position R & D to revenue respectively. Moreover, firm performance was measured using accounting-based indicators which were Return on Asset (ROA), Return on Capital Employed (ROCE), Dividend Yield (DY), Dividend Cover (DC), Earnings per Share (EPS), Price Earnings Ratio (PE) and Capital Gearing Ratio (CGR). RESULTS: The results of the study show that expensed R & D has a significant positive impact on DC, a significant negative impact on EPS, positively correlated with CGR with no significant impact and negatively correlated with ROA, ROCE, DY and PE but had no significant impact. As concerns capitalized R & D, the results reveal that capitalized R & D has a significant negative impact on ROA, ROCE and EPS, positively correlated with CGR but have no significant impact and negatively correlated with DY, DC and PE as well though no significant impact was found.

Based on dialogical theory and empirical exploration of surgical operations in a Swedish hospital, this text contributes to the study of critical work practice. In empirical detail, ethnographic investigation and video analysis show that ‘everyday interactivity’, i.e. technical development beyond the control of individual participants, is a ubiquitous phenomenon of surgical work. This research interest can be contrasted to models of human-machine interaction, which describe how a given technology affords or impedes an intended outcome. Conclusions are that there may be fundamentally different ways of describing the regular course of surgery. From so-called ‘designer-oriented‘ perspectives, creative or unexpected results would be seen as emergent signs of design failure. According to dialogical theory, unfolding and multifunctional technical outcomes are necessary in working life. The latter is everything but trivial for research and development. As concrete products of collective practice, workplace technology cannot support individual ‘user experiences’ or workflows. Instead, we may recognise already present, parallel, and ongoing design changes. Thus, the thesis problematise the meaning of teamwork and technology in everyday practice. / Utifrån dialogisk teori, interaktionsanalyser och etnografiska undersökningar av kirurgiska operationer inom olika kirurgiska specialiteter, problematiserar avhandlingen betydelsen av vardagliga och kritiska verksamheter. I empirisk detalj av några fallstudier, tagna ur ett omfattande material av inspelningar och etnografiska data om arbetsplatsen, visar avhandlingens videoanalys att “vardaglig interkreativitet”, det vill säga teknisk utveckling inom och mellan arbetslag, är ett ständigt närvarande fenomen i kirurgisk praktik. Detta ska ses i förhållande till gängse beskrivningar av kritiska verksamheter, vilka i huvudsak handlar om hur givna instruktioner och verktyg stödjer, eller inte stödjer, planerade delmål. Slutsatsen är att det är möjligt att ge helt olika empiriskt grundade beskrivningar av kirurgi. Utifrån så kallade “designerorienterade” ansatser förklaras varje oväntad teknisk användning som tecken på underliggande designproblem. Enligt dialogisk teori framstår istället teknisk pluralism och förändring som nödvändiga delar av verksamheten. Det senare är allt annat än självklart inom området verksamhetsutveckling. Med föränderliga tekniker och tekniska system som grund, blir det inte längre prioriterat att undersöka eller stödja situerade “användarupplevelser”. Istället bör redan befintliga interkreativa design processer och konkreta samkonstruktioner lyftas fram som tekniska förutsättningar för forskning och utveckling. Avhandlingen problematiserar således både hur teamarbete kan förstås och hur teknologi gestaltas i vardagen.