Abstract
This dissertation investigates the use of management accounting and control systems in R&D intensive firms in different organizational life-cycle stages. The thesis consists of four essays focusing on two categories of management accounting and control systems: capital budgeting decisions and management control systems. First, we investigate the evaluation and financing of investment projects in R&D intensive firms. Second, we moreover investigate how R&D intensive firms themselves use management control systems and how investors control their investments in R&D intensive target firms. The survey method within a contingency framework is used in the first three essays while the last essay represents the case study method. However, the dissertation as a whole is based on two main contexts, i.e. the organizational life-cycle and the field of high technology.
The results indicate that more sophisticated capital budgeting methods are used in large-sized R&D intensive firms while small-sized firms are not so likely to use these methods. The results indicate that firms understand the nature of R&D investment on the level of strategic management, because they have adopted strategic management tools in order to achieve better financial performance. We conclude that high R&D intensity plays an important role in management accounting, suggesting that large-sized high R&D intensity firms take note of special characteristics of R&D investments when taking strategic capital budgeting decisions. The comparison of the growth and revival stages extends the earlier life-cycle literature indicating that the information produced by management accounting and control systems is at least as important in the revival firm as it is during the first growth stage.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:oulo.fi/oai:oulu.fi:isbn978-951-42-8376-5 |
| Date | 06 March 2007 |
| Creators | Silvola, H. (Hanna) |
| Publisher | University of Oulu |
| Source Sets | University of Oulu |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess, © University of Oulu, 2007 |
| Relation | info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pissn/1455-2647, info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/eissn/1796-2269 |
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