R&D strategy and Australian manufacturing industry: an empirical investigation of emphasis and effectivness

This research investigates the degree of emphasis placed by the Australian manufacturing industry on Research and Development (R&D) strategy as well as on other organisational strategies such as marketing, HRs (HR), technology, and operations at the functional level. The research extends further to investigate whether the emphasis on R&D strategy differs with contextual factors such as firm size, firm’s generic strategy, type of market, firm’s life cycle stage, etc. A mail survey was carried out to collect information from manufacturing firms across Australia. This was followed by an on-site interview of some of the senior managers of manufacturing firms from three Australian states: South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.The study found that although the emphasis on R&D strategy has received a high priority in the past few years, it has not been as effective as the operations strategy and the technology strategy. The operations strategy has been accorded the highest importance in the past few years and this will continue in the future. The study also indicated that firms, which adopt a differentiation generic strategy, put more emphasis on R&D than the firms, which adopt cost leadership and focus generic strategies. The results did not indicate any evidence of a relationship between firm size and the R&D strategy although large firms are found to put more emphasis on operations and marketing strategies. Relatively higher emphasis was placed on the R&D strategy by businesses: at the growth stage; involved in the manufacture of consumer goods as opposed to industrial goods; involved in exports with a higher sales growth in export markets; and having a higher growth rate relative to their industry.     

R&D policy in a volatile economy

The literature on R&D-based growth establishes that market equilibrium is inefficient and derives optimal R&D policy. Normative analyses of this type use the assumption of steady state, largely motivated by analytical convenience. This paper questions this steady-state approach by introducing endogenous cycles as long-run equilibria. We show that the government fails to maximize welfare if policy which is optimal in steady state is myopically applied in cyclical equilibria. More specifically, we demonstrate that (i) cycles arise in the (very) standard R&D-based model of Grossman and Helpman [1991. Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA (Chapter 3)] once the model is framed in discrete time, (ii) these cycles are inefficient in the sense that they prevent welfare maximization, (iii) optimal steady-state R&D policy fails to eliminate cycles, and can even create inefficient cycles, (iv) the application of R&D subsidies leads to a trade-off between growth and macroeconomic stability, and (v) optimal R&D policy in a fluctuating economy is state-dependent, which generalizes optimal steady-state R&D policy.     

Cooperative and noncooperative R&D with spillovers: The case of labor-managed firms

This research focuses on the behavior of not-for-profit enterprises. In particular, using a familiar model of cost-reducing R&D with spillovers, we examine strategic interactions between labor-managed firms in a duopoly. Research spillovers have not been previously considered in the context of labor-managed firms. Among four market scenarios involving (i) competition in research and production; (ii) cooperation in research and production; (iii and iv) competition or cooperation in research and the reverse in production, our results show that research is greatest under full cooperation, while output is greatest under full competition. Output and R&D are the lowest in the case when firms compete in research, but form a production cartel. The degree of research spillovers has a crucial bearing upon these rankings. Some of these results differ from those for profit-maximizing firms. The effects of changes in research spillovers on employment (output) are shown to depend upon the nature of the underlying production technology. Policy implications are discussed.     

Convergence to symmetry in dynamic strategic models of R&D: The undiscounted case

Will R&D increase or decrease the asymmetry between firms over time? We examine this issue in the context of a dynamic, alternate-move duopoly model of non-cooperative R&D. The asymmetry we consider is with respect to the initial stocks of technological knowledge which provides one firm a greater potential for current and future profits in the product market. Utilizing a value loss process constructed from the Optimality Equation of dynamic programming, we show that for the undiscounted case the asymmetry between the firms disappears over time. We obtain this convergence-to-symmetry result by imparting a temporal character to R&D through the notion that R&D investment cannot be changed instantaneously, by allowing research externalities, complementarity or substitutability between own and appropriated R&D, and either increasing, decreasing or constant returns to scale in the production of technical knowledge from own and rival R&D.     

Roles, resources and benefits of intermediate organizations supporting triple helix collaborative R&D: The case of Precarn

Triple helix collaborations involving academia, government and industry are believed vital to the success of regional technology development. However, due to differences in culture, organizational functioning and incentive mechanisms as well as the different objectives of the various actors involved, such collaboration is difficult to create and sustain. A case study of the organization called Precarn, a collaborative, which manages a program of triple helix projects, is used here to illustrate how an intermediate organization can help triple helix partnerships towards the successful commercialization of new technologies. The paper contributes to the literature on managing R&D collaborations and innovation networks using organization theories to explain why and how collaborative intermediate organizations can facilitate successful technological adoption and commercialization across innovation networks.     

Strategy for technology development in public R&D institutes by partnering with the industry

If industry and R&D institute partner in developing the technology, there is a greater possibility for developing a commercially potential technology. Through this process, they combine tangible and intangible resources and cooperate in R&D activities. It also develops a common understanding and mutual trust and smoothens the process of adaptation of the technological innovation into a marketable product/process. This work intends to highlight the partnership process and developed a model. A survey conducted with R&D Managers of prominent companies world over and the earlier research drawn from the literature was used in developing the model for the purpose. The work also analyses the existing research interaction between industries and Indian public R&D institutes, using multi case method.