| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立東華大學 === 國際企業學系 === 93 === While the importance of R&D investment has been well recognized and past studies have also demonstrated some crucial factors influencing firms’ decisions regarding the level of R&D investment, a comprehensive explanatory framework incorporating environment, strategy and organization structure has not emerged, if any, yet. In light of the gap of R&D related literature, this study aims to propose an explanatory framework integrating the determinants from three dimensions: the external environment (the technology opportunity and appropriability), corporate strategies (ownership structure and diversification), and organization (absorptive capacity).
Evidence from a sample of 641 Taiwanese listed manufacturing firms shows that: (1) the appropriability of R&D outcomes and the degree of product diversification can have a significant positive effect on firms’ R&D investment; (2) technology opportunity alone does not stimulate firms to increase their R&D investment, but needs to be accompanied by firms’ absorptive capacity to induce higher motivation on R&D investment; (3) ownership does not have direct effect on R&D investment, either; nevertheless, the top managers may be willing to promote firms’ R&D activities when the firms demonstrate high absorptive capacity; and (4) absorptive capacity plays an important role in determining the levels of firms’ R&D investment. Based on the empirical findings above, important implications to the formulation of corporate strategy and the policy of the administration regarding R&D investment are discussed.
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