R&D Expenses and Corporate Performance : The Case of Information Technology Firms in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Chia-Yin Wu, 吳佳穎
• Other Authors: Chih-Young Hung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2001
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/92567567766670638398

博士 === 國立交通大學 === 科技管理所 === 89 === Though costly, R&D is an important activity that technological firms rely on to enhance their competitiveness. In this thesis, an extended Cobb-Douglas production function was proposed and used to examine the influence of R&D activity on the performance of Taiwan’s IC and PC related firms. For corporate performance, various measures derived from income statement were used in this study. The R&D activities were proxied by the R&D expenses and the R&D intensity of the underlying firms. The number of employees and the total assets of each of the underlying firms were used as control variables. The main findings of this study are as follows: First, the variable of sales is negatively related to the variable of R&D intensity. Second, the variable of cost of goods sold is also negatively related to the variable of R&D intensity. It seems that the R&D activities did not help to improve corporate performance in terms of bringing in more sales. However, our evidences suggest that R&D activity do enhance Taiwan’s PC and IC related firms by helping them to bring down the cost of goods sold. We also documented a peculiar phenomenon. There seems to exist a threshold in the relationship between R&D activity and the sales volume of the underlying firm. R&D expenses have to exceed a certain amount before they begin to have a positive relationship with the sales volume.