TY - JOUR
T1 - A bit of basic, a bit of applied? R&D strategies and firm performance
AU - Coad, Alex
AU - Segarra-Blasco, Agustí
AU - Teruel, Mercedes
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to Giulio Bottazzi, Patrick Llerena, Andrea Mina, Alessio Moneta, Ammon Salter, Federico Tamagni, Marco Vivarelli, Mehmet Ugur, and participants at the Workshop on “Innovation, firm dynamics, employment and growth: New developments in modelling and estimation” (Greenwich, UK, 21 June 2019), the 5 online workshop on Industrial Dynamics and Innovation (13 December 2019), as well as seminar participants the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (Pisa, Italy) and at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Reus, Spain), and the Editor (Al Link) and an anonymous referee. We are grateful to Verònica Gombau for her research support. This paper is part of a research project carried out with the financial support of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (2019PRF-URV-B2-80), the Consolidated Group of Research 2014-SGR-1395. The usual disclaimers apply. th
Funding Information:
We are grateful to Giulio Bottazzi, Patrick Llerena, Andrea Mina, Alessio Moneta, Ammon Salter, Federico Tamagni, Marco Vivarelli, Mehmet Ugur, and participants at the Workshop on ?Innovation, firm dynamics, employment and growth: New developments in modelling and estimation? (Greenwich, UK, 21 June 2019), the 5th online workshop on Industrial Dynamics and Innovation (13 December 2019), as well as seminar participants the Sant?Anna School of Advanced Studies (Pisa, Italy) and at Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Reus, Spain), and the Editor (Al Link) and an anonymous referee. We are grateful to Ver?nica Gombau for her research support. This paper is part of a research project carried out with the financial support of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (2019PRF-URV-B2-80), the Consolidated Group of Research 2014-SGR-1395. The usual disclaimers apply.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Most studies analysing the relationship between R&D and firm growth focus on total R&D investment. This paper aims to analyse separately each component of R&D investment (basic research, applied research and technological development) and evaluate how these types of R&D investment are related to firm growth. Using a sample of 3972 Spanish manufacturing firms during 2004–2015, our empirical results are the following. First, firms have heterogeneous R&D strategies. The common wisdom that young firms invest in basic research, while old firms invest in applied research, is not supported in our data. Second, we investigate the characteristics and dynamics of firms with different R&D strategies. We observe complementarities between applied research and technological development due to their positive associations with firm growth. Finally, our results show that there is a tendency for firms to transition from basic research to applied research.
AB - Most studies analysing the relationship between R&D and firm growth focus on total R&D investment. This paper aims to analyse separately each component of R&D investment (basic research, applied research and technological development) and evaluate how these types of R&D investment are related to firm growth. Using a sample of 3972 Spanish manufacturing firms during 2004–2015, our empirical results are the following. First, firms have heterogeneous R&D strategies. The common wisdom that young firms invest in basic research, while old firms invest in applied research, is not supported in our data. Second, we investigate the characteristics and dynamics of firms with different R&D strategies. We observe complementarities between applied research and technological development due to their positive associations with firm growth. Finally, our results show that there is a tendency for firms to transition from basic research to applied research.
KW - Applied research
KW - Basic research
KW - Complementarity
KW - Firm growth
KW - Linear model
KW - R&D
KW - Technological development
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85091773088&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85091773088&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10961-020-09826-1
DO - 10.1007/s10961-020-09826-1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85091773088
SN - 0892-9912
VL - 46
SP - 1758
EP - 1783
JO - Journal of Technology Transfer
JF - Journal of Technology Transfer
IS - 6
ER -