Evaluation and Performance Measurement of Research and Development

Techniques and Perspectives for Multi-level Analysis

This book develops and illustrates a comprehensive, multi-level framework for the evaluation of industrial research and development (R&D) activities and the measurement of their performance. The framework encompasses a set of hierarchical, interrelated levels at which R&D evaluation and performance measurement could be undertaken. This enlightening book focuses on the single industrial firm to study performance measurement of R&D functions, projects and individual researchers or engineers. It also addresses R&D evaluation from the point of view of financial markets, with a focus on the relationship between R&D investments and the value of the traded firm. The book broadens tin scope to study the role of technology platforms as R&D coordination mechanisms and also looks at the evaluation of R&D policies. This book will be warmly welcomed by researchers and postgraduate students in disciplines concerned with innovation management, technology policy, and finance who wish to gain an updated overview of R&D evaluation and performance measurement as well as exploring different units of analysis.

Our analysis suggests that firms use performance measurement in NPD mainly to
control activities in those industries (High Tech, in the definition of Kodama)
where the failure rates of projects and activities, and hence their unpredictability,
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