Business type, industry value chain, and R&D performance: Evidence from high-tech firms in an emerging market

Hsiao-Wen Wang and Ming-Cheng Wu

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2012, vol. 79, issue 2, 326-340

Abstract: This study focuses on how the business type and technological learning mode, which a high-tech firm chooses based on its core competence, influence the firm's R&D strategies, which in turn affect firm performance. This study also explores how the interaction between a firm's business type and industry value chain stage affects the relationship between R&D investments and operating performance. We suggest that the linkage of R&D investments and operating performance will increase gradually, when firms move from contract manufacturing to own brand business. R&D investments can contribute more to performance when firms adopt the hybrid business type. Furthermore, R&D investments generate more significant benefits for the own brand companies than the contract manufacturers at the same stage of the industry value chain. R&D investments of the downstream contract manufacturers have a negative impact on firm performance. Regardless of business type, firms in the upstream (midstream) stage of the industry value chain outperform downstream stage firms in deriving benefits from R&D activities. Finally, the lagged effects of R&D investments on operating performance are affected by the interaction between business type and industry value chain.

Keywords: R&D performance; OBM; ODM/OEM; Technological learning; Industry value chain; Core competence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:79:y:2012:i:2:p:326-340

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2011.05.008

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