An exploratory study on the determinants of performance in regional industry technology development programs

• Published in: Asia Pacific journal of innovation and entrepreneurship (Online) 2017-01, Vol.11 (2), p.125-143
• Main Authors: Choo-Hui, Park, Jin-Kyo Shin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accounting; Complexity of the product market; Employees; Infrastructure; Manufacturing; R&D; R&D capability; Regional industry technology development program; Research & development; Research centers; Technological characteristics; Textile industry; Types of collaborative research
• ISSN: 2071-1395; 2398-7812
• DOI: 10.1108/APJIE-08-2017-027

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the determinants of the performance of regional industrial technology development programs among the regional strategic industrial development program that the central government and Daegu metropolitan city jointly promoted between 2004 and 2012. Specifically, in this research, the authors are trying to identify the effects of R&D capabilities and technical development tasks on technological and managerial performance.Design/methodology/approachThe dependent variables of this study are technical and economic performance. Technical performance, product and process innovation, economic performance, sales and export increases were measured using five-point Likert scales. The authors added the contribution of sales through technology development to economic performance. The independent variable is the company’s R&D capability, measured by the number of R&D staff compared to the average total number of employees from 2004 to 2012. The characteristics of the technology development tasks were measured by technical characteristics, market characteristics and collaborative research types. The technological characteristics were measured by seven factors, including technological change, technical difficulty, potential in commercialization, competition between domestic and foreign competitors, difficulty in introducing overseas technology and the technological gap. Market characteristics were largely divided into complexity, dynamics and competitiveness. The types of collaborative research were divided into whether or not there were collaborative research with the participation of large corporations. The control variables are firm size (number of employees) and firm age. Regression analysis was used to analyze the determinants of performance, and a difference analysis was conducted to determine the effect of collaborative research on performance.FindingsThe main determinants of the regional industrial technology development program performance are the characteristics of the technology development task rather than the internal R&D capability; moreover, the technical characteristics, complexity of the developed product market and participation of large corporations had significant effects on R&D capability. The R&D capacity of firms in internal R&D capacity had a significant effect only on the improvement of technology development ability. Therefore, R&D capacity, which is the main determinant of technology innovation, did