Recoupment of government R&D expenditures: issues and practices in the USA

Recently there have been discussions in the US concerning the implementation of a recoupment policy for government expenditures on R & D.The basic questions in developing recoupment policies can be stated as: (1)“it appropriate to seek recoupment of government-supported R & D when such R & D subsequently is utilized to generate private profits? (2) If so, what options exist?”In addressing the first question, the authors develop some pro and con arguments with respect to recoupment. The authors conclude that there are no easy criteria for judging whether and when recoupment of government expenditures on R & D is appropriate. There is currently inadequate information about, and analyses of, the benefits and costs of a recoupment policy upon which to base a policy design. Reasonable people may disagree both on general criteria and on specific cases.In addressing the second question, a review of foreign programs that incorporate recoupment provisions was made to see what lessons they might provide for the US. Programs with recoupment provisions do not represent a major part of total government expenditures on R & D, although in some countries and time periods they have been a significant part of government expenditures on civilian, industry-related R & D, especially in selected industries. When employed, recoupment policies do not seem on average to have been particularly successful.     

Government policies towards industrial innovation: a review

Existing economic theories show that continuing innovation, diffusion, and technical and managerial improvement are necessary for economic growth and international competitiveness in the industrially advanced countries. But knowledge of why, where and how governments should intervene in the processes of industrial innovations stems more from trial and error than from systematic empirical information of the nature and extent of the hindrances to economically and socially desirable innovations, and of the effectiveness of alternative government policies to remove them. Nonetheless, past empirical studies do offer some clues.Differences amongst industrial sectors. The sources of new technology vary widely amongst inustrial sectors: in the costs of innovation, in the relative importance of outside suppliers of equipment and materials, of large and small firms, and of full-time R & D departments as compared to part-time innovative activities (sect. 7, 8). Similarly, the conditions for successful innovation vary amongst sectors (sect.6). Thus, government policies designed to influence innovation are likely to act with different intensities in different industries.The management of innovation. Nonetheless, there are some features common to innovation in different industries. Considerable costs beyond R & D are often necessary before the innovations reach commercial use (sect.4). And the following managerial characteristics are in general associated with successful innovation: a deliberate policy of seeking innovations; close and careful attention to customer requirements; good personal communications both within the firm and with outside sources of relevant knowledge; a style of management that is ‘organic’ and ‘participatory’ rather than ‘hierarchical’ and ‘authoritarian’; strong project leadership; and a strong engineering capability (sect. 6).R & D managers are still unable to predict the outcome of R & D projects to a useful degree of accuracy and, in the literature on methods of project selection, very little attention is paid to market uncertainties. Furthermore, a greater use of conventional investment appraisal criteria in deciding on R & D projects may re-inforce the already observed tendency in industry towards short-term, low-risk projects, to the neglect of longer-term, high-risk projects (sect. 5).Governments should therefore examine whether the benefits of policies towards education and management advisory services for innovation might outweigh their costs. They may also have a significant role to play in financing longer-term research that is basic to the development of industrial technology (subsect. 12.5).The nature of market and production demands. The direction of industrial innovation is often very sensitive to market and production demands (sect. 3). This fact, together with the high degree of market uncertainty facing innovating firms (sect. 5), suggest that governments can potentially influence both the pace and the direction of industrial innovation through their influence on the scale of industrial, consumer and public service demands. However, this potential influence will become real only if users of innovations are able to specify the innovations that they need, or to evaluate those that they get. This is generally the case for industrial demand, but not in consumer and public service markets, where fashion, insensitivity to users' needs and lack of technical competence often prevail. Government-funded technological institutes and laboratories are ideally placed to provide such technical competence (sub-sect. 12.3).Economic incentives and rewards for innovation. A whole range of economic factors are said to influence the resources, the incentives and the rewards for innovation: for example, the degree of monopoly or the degree of competition, the patent system, the level of profits, the level of taxation, and the level of demand. The empirical evidence on the effects of most of these factors on industrial innovation is either inconclusive or non-existent. However, in the USA a close relationship has been observed between growth of industry sales and growth of industry-financed R & D activities (sect. 10). The rate of growth of demand is also one of the key factors influencing the rate of diffusion of innovations amongst their potential population of users (sects. 11, 12.2).The government-financed scientific and technological infrastructure. Scientific and technological knowledge from outside of innovating firms is often crucial to the completion of successful innovations, and three UK studies show that a significant proportion of this outside knowledge comes from government-financed technological institutes and laboratories, and from the universities (sect. 3). If the same is true in other countries, it should be an essential feature of any government policy towards industrial innovation to know how effectively government-funded laboratories and universities provide supportive knowledge to industry, and how government laboratories should be organised and financed (subsect. 12.4).Direct government-financing of innovative activities in industry. Governments specifically finance R & D activities in industrial firms, although these expenditures are less than those for general industrial development (sect. 13). These R & D activities in industry are relatively more important in France and UK, than in F.R. Germany and the Netherlands.In the four countries, more than 70% of all civilian government R & D activities related to industry are spent on aircraft, space, nuclear energy and electronics (subsect. 14.4). In all these high technologies, governments attempted in the 1960's to implement ‘policies for innovation’, involving government procurement, industrial mergers and attempts at European co-operation, in addition to the financing of R & D (subsect. 14.5). Government expenditures on civilian R & D related to other industrial sectors are very much smaller in all four countries (subsect 14.4).Where should governments intervene? A, number of attempts have been made to develop a formal framework of criteria to assist governments in deciding where they should intervene in industrial innovation. They all run into the following difficulties: dealing with multiple policy objectives; assessing national costs and benefits; comparing with alternative policies, choosing appropriate policy instruments (sect. 17).How should governments intervene? Very little information is available on the effectiveness of various policy instruments that have been used by governments in order to promote innovation in industry. Although it is often possible to measure the inputs into such policies, the measurement of their outputs (or results) is more difficult. Nonetheless, detailed studies would enable some such measurements to be made, and internationally comparable studies would increase the range of experiences and the number of cases that could be examined (sect. 18).Why should governments intervene? A full appreciation of the nature and scale of hindrances to industrial innovation, on which governments should act to remove, requires direct information on what innovations are (or are not) being introduced by industry, and why they are (or are not) being inyroduced. This information can best be obtained from analyses of the behaviour of industrial firms. They would differ from most existing innovation studies that concentrate on asking how firms must behave in order to make successful innovation, by asking what innovations are attempted, and why firms are stimulated to attempt them (sect. 19).     

融资约束背景下的企业研发投入与新产品开发绩效 ——基于40万工业企业数据库的面板模型分析

以往研究对于企业研发投入强度与新产品开发绩效之间的互动关系存在着正向影响与负向影响的不同结论。其原因之一在于未考虑融资约束等情境因素的影响。本文研究了从融资约束的视角研究了企业研发投入强度与新产品开发绩效之间的影响关系,基于构建面板回归模型的方法和中国工业企业数据,本文的实证结果表明,（1）进一步验证了研发投入强度与新产品开发绩效之间的正向关系的存在;（2）研发投入强度与新产品开发绩效存在着非线性倒U型关系,（3）检验了融资约束存在的调节效应,内部融资约束与外部融资约束对于上述关系的影响不同。上述结果可以为企业、政府和金融机构共同促进形成新产品研究提供理论与政策指引。     

奖惩机制下废弃电器电子产品回收处理商合作研发决策研究

为研究奖惩机制与回收处理商创新研发决策之间的相互影响,考虑存在技术溢出效应和回收竞争,构建有无奖惩机制下回收处理商独立研发与合作研发的4种决策模型。研究表明:无论政府是否实施奖惩,回收处理商合作研发时的利润始终不小于独立研发时的利润,而研发水平的相对高低与技术溢出率和奖惩力度有关;当回收处理商合作研发时,奖惩机制总可以激励回收处理商提高研发水平,而回收处理商是否获得更优的利润,受到技术溢出率和奖惩力度的影响。     

Containing the Not-Invented-Here Syndrome in external knowledge absorption and open innovation: The role of indirect countermeasures

This paper builds new theory and provides supporting evidence to contain the Not-Invented-Here Syndrome (NIHS) – a persistent decision-making error arising from an attitude-based bias against external knowledge. Conceptually, we draw on the 4i framework of organizational learning to develop a novel process perspective on NIHS. This allows us not only to unpack how and where NIHS impedes organizational learning, but also to identify the key requirements for effective NIHS countermeasures. Importantly, countermeasures fall into two categories: those that seek to change the negative attitude directly (direct NIHS countermeasures) and those that seek to attenuate the behavioral impact of negative attitudes without addressing the attitudes as such (indirect NIHS countermeasures). While the evidence base on direct NIHS countermeasures has grown over the last decade, indirect NIHS countermeasures have received little research attention. To address this gap, we adopt a mixed methods research design composed of two complementary empirical studies – the first qualitative and the second quantitative. Study 1 explores the prevalence of distinct NIHS countermeasures in collaborative R&D practice. Based on 32 interviews and three focus group meetings with R&D employees, we find that a broad array of primarily direct NIHS countermeasures is employed in R&D practice. Study 2 addresses the scarcity of scholarly and managerial insights on indirect NIHS countermeasures by testing the effectiveness of perspective taking as a debiasing technique to contain negative attitudes at the level of the individual. Based on quantitative survey data from 565 global R&D projects, it provides empirical evidence not only for the prevalence and negative effects of NIHS on project success as mediated by external knowledge absorption, but also for the effectiveness of perspective taking as an exemplary indirect NIHS countermeasure.     

Unravelling the cognitive and interorganisational structure of public/private R&D networks: A case study of catalysis research in the Netherlands

This paper presents findings of a study that discloses key features of the Dutch R&D network in the area of catalysis, a sub-domain of industrial-relevant chemistry. The input comprises empirical data on collaborative research publications, informal network ties, and formal R&D linkages. The study aimed at identifying all public and private sector research organisations involved in the network, characterising their R&D output in terms of international scientific papers and patents, and describing and analysing relational and positional dimensions of their interorganisational network. The results provide an overview of Dutch activity within the worldwide cognitive landscape of catalysis R&D — from both a scientific and technological perspective. The interorganisational relationships reveal a strong and integrated network comprising many universities, public research labs, and private enterprises. The results of a mail survey held among academic and industrial researchers who are active within the network not only corroborate these empirical findings, but also elicited relevant criticisms concerning the efficiency and effectiveness of the network, and provided useful suggestions for its improvement. The paper concludes by looking at the benefits of this methodology, which links external quantitative information and qualitative expert opinions, as an analytical tool for government S&T policy and R&D management purposes.     

Resource creation and partnership in R&D consortia

In this article, we examine, through an analysis of characteristics specific to both the partner firm and the consortium, the process of creating new resources and competencies in research and development (R&D) consortia. As interfirm cooperation develops, issues concerning the role of competencies and specific resources become increasingly relevant. While theoretical work in this area has grown significantly, empirical analysis has been less systematic; we attempt here to fulfill the insufficiencies in empirical analysis. Since we are interested in how individual participating companies succeed in creating resources, our research is focused on the partner firm itself and not on the consortium as a whole. Our statistical analysis of 317 firms enables us to examine the different types of technological developments that can be achieved through EUREKA R&D consortia. We study the impact that partner characteristics and the choice of a consortium's organizational form can have on the types of resources created by a partner. Our findings, which detail the factors that affect the creation of competencies in R&D consortia, strongly support the resource-based theory of the firm.     

R & D in Israeli industry

This paper deals with several aspects of R & D activity in Israel's manufacturing industries on three levels — the economy, industrial branch and the firm. Relative to other industrial countries, Israel is characterized by a high share of R & D expenditure in GNP but a low level of industrial R & D. If we take registered patents as an indicator of R & D output no significant correlation is found between this measure and expenditure on R & D; this may point to a low level of success or to the nature of R & D being directed more to small improvements of existing products and processes than to new inventions. An inter-industry analysis shows that R & D expenditure is positively correlated with average firm size and capital per employee and negatively correlated with concentration ratio. A positive correlation was also found with respect to increase in sales and export per employee but not with the rate of growth of export. Although most R & D is performed by large companies there is no significant correlation between R & D expenditure and firm's size among firms engaged in R & D, nor between R & D expenditure and firm's profitability. Concerning the relationship between domestic R & D and imports of technology a tentative conclusion is that Israel does not derive sufficient benefit from the international stock of knowledge.     

新型研发机构研究的现状评估与发展建议——基于创新生态系统与创新价值链视角

以2003～2018年国内关于新型研发机构的139篇研究文献为分析样本,使用内容分析法和文献研究法,对新型研发机构的研究现状进行评估与综述。研究发现,尽管新型研发机构的论文发表数量在近年不断增长,但仍以案例研究为主要方法,着重进行定性分析与现状总结,以“现状——问题——建议”的模式,针对问题与不足提出建议或措施,定量分析与实证研究不多,也缺乏完整的理论框架。随后,从新型研发机构作为官产学等多创新主体的“耦合”的角度出发,展望基于创新生态系统与创新价值链视角,从知识来源、获取、转化到应用一整套循环递归的内在创新过程,构建一个创新生态范式,找准新型研发机构在创新价值链中的“生态位”,促进科技成果跨越“死亡之谷”,形成完整的理论框架和实证探索路径。     

Beyond formal R&D: Taking advantage of other sources of innovation in low- and medium-technology industries

This study deepens our knowledge of critical success factors in the innovation process of low- and medium-technology (LMT) industries. To accomplish this, it explores how the innovation process in LMT firms may depend on non-formal R&D activities and the use of external sources. The empirical analysis is based on a representative panel of Spanish manufacturing firms. The results strongly support the view that non-R&D activities such as design, the use of advanced machinery and training are crucial to understanding the innovation process of any firm. The study finds, however, that the impact of these activities is especially important in LMT industries, particularly for the achievement of product innovations. The empirical evidence also reveals the importance of external sources such as the use of consultants, the hiring of personnel, collaboration agreements and external R&D, with the greatest differences between LMT and high-technology (HT) firms being observed in process innovations.     

Market for technology 2.0? Reassessing the role of complementary assets on licensing decisions

The ability to access specialized complementary assets has been key to explaining how firms benefit from their technological innovations. When firms lack complementary assets the more likely they have to rely on markets for technology to profit from their R&D investments. We extend this view documenting the emergence of a new type of industry intermediary, Contract Development & Manufacturing Organizations (CDMOs), which provide access to complementary assets on a per-use basis. CDMOs allow firms to contract for complementary assets at variable costs without the need to invest in such assets internally. This opens up new product development paths, in which firms do not out-license their products to firms with complementary assets but sustain their development in-house using CDMOs. We highlight that the expansion of services offered by CDMOs changes the nature of the industry's source of competitive advantage and provide empirical evidence that the expansion of CDMOs is associated with a decline in the number of out-licensing deals among US biopharmaceutical firms. In so doing, the study explains how innovation intermediaries like CDMOs can have a profound effect on an industry's specialized complementary assets and the market for technology.     

Science policy in New Zealand

New Zealand's science policy consists of spending about 0.5% of its G.N.P. on R & D. Of this expenditure 41% is spent on activities relating to agriculture and 9% on activities related to manufacturing. This imbalance in spending between agriculture and manufacturing is not consistent with the goals being placed on manufacturing and the importance of manufacturing in New Zealand's domestic economy. A change in emphasis of an expanded R & D programme coupled with new methods of technology transfer will be necessary for New Zealand to obtain her goals of economic expansion.     

The impacts of different R&D organizational structures on performance of firms: Perspective of absorptive capacity

To speed up strategic alliance in R&D activities, different forms of R&D organization structures can be summarized into different roles including the input-oriented, the output-oriented, and the matrix organization structure. The most common mode of strategic alliance consists of horizontal and vertical integrations. However, the study adopting absorptive capacity to examine the impacts of different R&D organization structures on the performance of firms at different alliance modes has never been discussed. Therefore, the paper employs absorptive capacity to mediate the relationships between different R&D organization structures and the performance of firms. Since the theory of transaction cost economics is inadequate for addressing how well the technological knowledge develops in the organization. A conceptual model to analyze the tension between product strategies and their strategy implementation is proposed to challenge the vacancy. Practical investigation shows that a matrix R&D organizational structure mainly transfers knowledge to input-oriented R&D organizational structures in horizontal integration, and mainly integrates capabilities from output-oriented organizational structures in vertical integration. The result implies that stronger institutional environments lead to a stronger link between product strategies and their performance in vertical integration. Oppositely, the link is strengthened if more favorable attitudes and weaker management controls are present in horizontal integrations.     

RESEARCH FUNDING IN AUSTRALIA: A VIEW FROM THE NORTH

This paper seeks to contribute to the continuing controversy in Australia on the best way to deploy that country's scientific and technological research and development (R & D) resources. It puts forward and discusses some policy options relating to the ‘restructuring’ of the Australian R&D system currently underway, for the consideration of the research community and those responsible for the research policies. In particular, the paper comments on how overall objectives and priorities for R&D can be set, the need for evaluations of the research and development that is conducted, the need to develop a dialogue between the public and the scientific community over the setting of research and development directions.     

新型研发机构参与主体的合作策略选择——演化博弈视角

在有限理性假设前提下,利用演化博弈模型探究了新型研发机构中各参与主体之间合作策略的选择问题。通过分析多元主体收益支付矩阵,求解复制动态方程和雅可比矩阵,得到模型局部均衡点,从而得出随着时间变化参与各方最终的策略选择,并通过数值模拟仿真验证博弈系统策略演化趋势,同时梳理了合作创新下新型研发机构策略选择的影响因素。在此基础上,文章从合作模式、企业需求和政策环境等角度,提出实现新型研发机构可持续发展的策略建议。     

Controlling innovative projects with moral hazard and asymmetric information

We study optimal incentive contracts offered to a research and development (R&D) manager, who can propose an innovative project and is in charge of conducting this project. The manager has private information about the project profitability and he exerts unobservable levels of different kinds of effort in order to increase the feasibility of successfully completing the project in terms of meeting product specifications. In particular, we analyze a situation, in which two interrelated performance measures on different hierarchical levels are available for contracting purposes. We show how asymmetric information about the project and further characteristics of the project influence the weights of the performance measures. We also make a number of empirical predictions about the composition of compensation contracts for R&D managers.     

Regional economic integration and R&D investment

We analyze the influence of a regional economic integration agreement (REIA) on a firm's investments in research and development (R&D). A country's entry into a REIA creates two competing influences on the firm's R&D investments. On the one hand, increased competition in product markets after the REIA would induce the firm to invest in internal R&D to improve its distinctive technological competitiveness. On the other hand, better access to sources of inputs in factor markets after the REIA would induce the firm to purchase external R&D because it can outsource technology more easily. Surprisingly, the empirical analysis shows that the REIA's impact on R&D investment is driven primarily by product markets rather than by factor markets. After the REIA, product markets induce firms not only to invest more in internal R&D but also purchase more external R&D. In contrast, after the REIA factor markets have limited influence on internal or external R&D investments.     

新型研发机构评价研究综述及启示建议——评价流程视角

在新型研发机构蓬勃发展的背景下,新型研发机构的评价研究存在诸多问题,有待深入考察和完善。本文通过梳理国内新型研发机构评价相关政策的异同,利用文献调研和内容分析法分析了新型研发机构评价流程中的区域政策、评价原则、评价理念、指标和实证研究等内容。结论表明新型研发机构评价研究还处于初步探索阶段,评价流程、评价理念、评价指标、评价研究实证方面还需优化。同时本文提出了相关建议：及时引入新的评价理念并加以实践验证;建立分类评价体系;在评价研究实证方面增强流程完整性,探索并比较多种评价方法;评价指标侧重科研和产业化能力,优化评价指标。     

Corporate decision-making for allocations to research and development

The analysis developed here suggests that conventional project based approaches to R & D budget determination do not provide a satisfactory explanation of the actual behaviour of typical large modern corporations. An alternative frame of reference for modelling such behaviour based on a gestalt interpretation is suggested and an examination conducted of differences in corporate R & D budgeting techniques described in a number of studies. It is suggested that the frame of reference developed here provides a useful explanation of differences in budgeting conventions.The interpretation developed is also used to analyse variation in industrial innovative activity. Studies in this area have frequently been based on the concept of rival firms matching each others R & D budgets. Models based on this concept have produced conflicting evidence in this respect. It is suggested here that an alternative approach based on a gestalt interpretation may provide a rather better explanation.     

Marketing/R&D integration in the pharmaceutical industry

Integrating marketing and R&D inputs is one of the fundamental challenges in managing innovation. In the pharmaceutical industry, considering its reputed ‘technology push’ model of innovation, the challenge of integrating marketing and R&D could hardly be greater. Thus, the recent trend among pharmaceutical firms of implementing Marketing/R&D integrating mechanisms calls for upgrading our conceptualization of the innovation process in this industry. It also raises important questions regarding Marketing's contribution in new product development, and how to organize to assure that contribution is leveraged. We use the case of a pharmaceutical firm which recently implemented Marketing/R&D integrating mechanisms to examine Marketing's new roles. We find that the extreme conditions surrounding innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, notably the need to cope with Knightean uncertainty, highlight important contributions of Marketing input in R&D that deserve more attention. We suggest that Marketing's most important contribution under these conditions lies in ‘not getting it wrong’ rather than ‘getting it right,’ in setting minimum criteria in project evaluations rather than definite targets, and in refocusing the attention of R&D staff through the very process of providing this input. Given the value of these contributions, modern pharmaceutical firms would indeed be ill advised to think of drug discovery as merely a linear process. Drug development has become an interactive process where the timing, type and impact of Marketing involvement is balanced and managed via certain organizational mechanisms throughout the R&D process, which is an iterative one.