Patterns of R&D and Growth Performance: Can a Technological Follower Be Converted Into an Economic Leader?

It is well known that researchers in several traditions have argued that innovation is essential to ensure countries’ economic growth (Schumpeter, 1912; Freeman, 1987; Pavitt, 1982; Romer, 1990; Jones, 1995). At the same time, others researchers have stressed the role of imitative capacity in economic catching-up (Rosenberg, 1963; Abramovitz, 1986; Fagerberg, 1987). Simultaneously, for a great lot of countries economic growth has become one of the most significant policy commitments. Accordingly, although with very different results, several countries have vastly increased their economic and policy commitments to innovation and have made investments in their innovative capacity, and in their levels of R&D expenditures. Furthermore, R&D intensity, the structure of R&D expenditures and the productivity of R&D outlays show a remarkable diversity across countries. Our paper uses this diversity and the lessons of the past three decades to shed some light on the relationship between productivity and technological change and aims to answer the following questions: How was the productivity in economic miracles propelled by a technological change? What are the reasons why it seems so easy for some few countries — and so difficult for a lot of others — to catch-up with the levels of productivity of the world technological frontier? So, in this paper we investigate the patterns of development in national innovative capacity, focusing on the country level investments in R&D, and in the examination of the patent counts, in a broad sample of countries that include the leaders and the followers in catching up to the world's leading countries. The institutional configurations, and national policy decisions that shape the different behaviour of some follower nations in terms of productivity and innovative output, are also studied.

Environment Based Innovation: Policy Questions

Natural resources and physical cultural resources, termed in this paper as “Environmental Resources”, can be important assets for regional competitiveness and innovation. In recent years, these kinds of assets are being more considered in regional development strategies, because they can be a source of differentiation and of new competitive advantages. In this paper we discuss the role of environmental resources in regional innovation policies. We begin by relating environmental resources with regional development and by emphasizing some opposite views in what refers to the function of environmental resources in regional development. Next we deal with the relationship between regional competitive advantages and innovation strategies. The specificities and problems that arise when the aim is to construct competitiveness advantages through environmental resources valorisation are the core of section 3. In that section, we highlight the characteristics of environmental resources and we check the applicability of the “natural resource curse” to the dynamics based on the valorisation of environmental resources. The reasons that justify the public intervention as well as difficulties concerning the adequate level of intervention (local / regional / national) are also examined. The paper ends with some conclusions and policy implications.Competitiveness, Environment, Innovation, Innovation Policies, Regional Development

Análise do efeito da incerteza sobre o nível de investimentos : uma abordagem sob a ótica da Teoria das Opções Reais

Dissertação (mestrado)—UnB/UFPB/UFRN, Programa Multi-institucional e Inter-regional de Pós-graduação em Ciências Contábeis, 2016.Esta dissertação teve por objetivo analisar o efeito da incerteza sobre o nível de investimento das empresas listadas na Bolsa de Valores, Mercadorias e Futuros de São Paulo (BM&FBovespa). A amostra compôs-se de todas as empresas não financeiras listadas na BM&FBovespa entre o período de 2008 a 2014. Coletaram-se os dados contábeis e de mercado no banco de dados Economatica®, e fez-se a classificação dos setores das empresas de acordo com os dados disponibilizados na BM&FBovespa. Como proxy para a incerteza total, utilizou-se a volatilidade histórica do retorno das ações. Decompôs-se essa medida em três componentes de risco: o de mercado, o idiossincrático e o específico da firma, baseando-se no modelo de Bulan (2005) e Xu, Wang e Xin (2010). Além disso, utilizou-se uma proxy alternativa para medição da incerteza, conforme o estudo de Tran (2014), que foi a volatilidade condicional do retorno das ações. Para análise do efeito da incerteza sobre as decisões de investimento, utilizou-se o método de Mínimos Quadrados Ordinários (MQO) e Mínimos Quadrados em Dois Estágios (MQ2E), quando constatados problemas de endogeneidade da medida de incerteza. Os resultados indicam que a incerteza total tem um efeito negativo e significativo estatisticamente sobre o nível de investimento. Quanto às incertezas de mercado e idiossincrática, verificou-se que não há um efeito estatisticamente significativo sobre o nível de investimento, enquanto que a incerteza específica tem um efeito negativo e significativo, inclusive superior ao da incerteza total, uma vez que o aumento de 1% da incerteza específica da firma reduz o nível de investimento em 0,4706%, e o aumento de 1% da incerteza total reduz o nível de investimento em apenas 0,2567%. Assim, pode-se afirmar que a incerteza da firma é mais significante para explicar o nível de investimento de uma empresa do que a incerteza total, logo, a abordagem que explica o efeito da incerteza sobre o nível de investimento é a Teoria das Opções Reais (TOR). Diante dessas evidências, rejeitaram-se a hipótese 1, de que a incerteza de mercado tem um efeito negativo sobre o nível de investimento, e a hipótese 2 (a), de que a incerteza idiossincrática tem um efeito negativo sobre o nível de investimento. Por outro lado, não se pode rejeitar a hipótese 2, de que existe um efeito negativo da incerteza total sobre o nível de investimento, e a hipótese 2 (b), de que existe um efeito negativo da incerteza específica da firma sobre o nível de investimento. Além disso, de acordo com os resultados obtidos, verificou-se que, no mercado brasileiro, as firmas menores são mais sensíveis à incerteza e às mudanças no ambiente de negócio do que as firmas maiores. Quanto à competitividade, identificou-se que as empresas mais competitivas são mais sensíveis à incerteza do que as menos competitivas. Ademais, a amostra do estudo se restringiu ao período de full IFRS, tendo em vista as mudanças das práticas contábeis que alteraram a forma de mensuração de algumas variáveis explicativas. Dessa forma, após essa restrição, verificou-se que não houve variação do efeito das incertezas total, de mercado, de setor e específica da firma sobre o nível de investimento. Nesse sentido, com base nos resultados obtidos, observou-se que a incerteza tem um efeito negativo sobre o nível de investimento das empresas, principalmente a incerteza específica da firma, conforme prevê a TOR. Logo, os administradores devem considerá-la no processo de tomada de decisão. Ressalta-se que esses resultados podem fomentar o estabelecimento de políticas para análise da viabilidade de novos projetos de investimento. Por fim, as conclusões obtidas nesta dissertação devem ficar restritas à amostra utilizada.This dissertation aimed to analyze the effect of uncertainty on the level of investment by companies listed on the São Paulo Stock, Mercantile and Futures Exchange (BM&FBovespa). The sample consists of all non-financial companies listed on the BM & FBovespa between 2008 and 2014. They were collected accounting and market data in Economatica®database, and the classification of sectors of the companies was made according to the data available on the BM&FBovespa. As a proxy for the total uncertainty, it was used the historical volatility of stock returns. This measure was decomposed into three risk components: market, idiosyncratic and specific to the firm, based on the model of Bulan (2005) and Xu, Wang Xin (2010). In addition, it was used an alternative proxy to measurement the uncertainty, according to the study of Tran (2014), which was the conditional volatility of the stock return. To analyze the effect of uncertainty on investment decisions, it was used the method of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS), when observed endogeneity problems of measurement of uncertainty. The results indicate that the total uncertainty has a statistically negative and significant effect on the level of investment. Regarding the market and idiosyncratic uncertainties, it was found there is no statistically significant effect on the level of investment, whereas the specific uncertainty has a significant negative effect, even higher than the total uncertainty, since the increase of 1 % of the specific firm uncertainty reduces the level of investment in 0.4706%, and the increase of 1% of the total uncertainty reduces the level of investment in just 0.2567%. So it can say that the uncertainty of the firm is more important to explain the company’s investment level than the total uncertainty, so the approach that explains the effect of uncertainty on the level of investment is the Real Options Theory (ROT). Faced with this evidence, they rejected the hypothesis 1, that market uncertainty has a negative effect on the level of investment, and the hypothesis 2 (a), that the idiosyncratic uncertainty has a negative effect on the level of investment. Furthermore, according to the results, it was found that, in Brazilian market, smaller firms are more sensitive to uncertainties and changes in the business environment than the bigger firms. As for competitiveness, it was identified that the most competitive companies are more sensitive to uncertainty than the less competitive. Moreover, the study sample was restricted to the period of full IFRS, considering the changes in accounting practices that changed the way of measurement of some explanatory variables. Therefore, after this restriction, it was found that there was no variation of the effect of total market, sector, and specific of firm uncertainties on the level of investment. In this sense, based on the results, it was observed that the uncertainty has a negative effect on the level of business investment, particularly the specific uncertainty of the firm, as predicts the TOR. Therefore, administrators should consider it in the decision-making process. It is noteworthy that these results may encourage the establishment of policies for viability analysis of new investment projects. Finally, the conclusions obtained in this dissertation should be restricted to the sample used

Risk modelling in times of crisis

Financial market states of high volatility in bear markets are often characterized by an increase in correlation, decreasing the diversification benefits as markets behave more homogeneously. This research focuses on the expectations of correlation and volatility across different asset classes on a risk-parity portfolio by using different measurements of risk to analyze how differently they perform, especially in times of higher volatility and correlation. This work project objective is to measure the impact of dynamically adjusting the variance-covariance matrix when such risk measures alter significantly. Moreover, a clustered risk parity portfolio will be computed with the optimal returns from the asset classes, further improving performance

An Embryo Quality Assessment Application for ART Laboratories

In this work it is described a system that aims to meet the needs of information management in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) laboratories; it is also proposed an evaluation model of embryos based on a triangular norm. One of the most common undesired consequences of ART treatments is the occurrence of multiple pregnancies. Therefore reducing the number of embryos per transfer is of paramount importance. In order to improve pregnancy rates while reducing the incidence of multiple births an accurate embryo quality evaluation is essential. The main objectives of the synthesized system are twofold: (i) the gathering and management of all the information needed to perform the embryo evaluation and (ii) the development of a tool that can serve as aid to carry out that evaluation with precision and consistency. The application herein presented accomplishes these two objectives. The analysis of the requirements of the assessment process has resulted in a flexible data model, used in the presented prototype, supporting the selective embryo transfer decision-making process.Nesta dissertação é descrito um sistema que visa atender as necessidades de gestão da informação em laboratórios de Procriação Medicamente Assistida (PMA); é igualmente proposto um modelo de avaliação embrionária com base em uma norma triangular. Uma das consequências indesejáveis mais comuns de tratamentos de PMA é a ocorrência de gravidez múltipla. Portanto, reduzir o número de embriões por transferência é de suma importância. A fim de melhorar as taxas de gravidez, reduzindo a incidência de nascimentos múltiplos uma avaliação precisa da qualidade do embrião é essencial. Os principais objetivos do sistema sintetizado são dois: (i) a recolha e gestão de todas as informações necessárias para realizar a avaliação do embrião e (ii) o desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta que pode servir de ajuda para realizar essa avaliação com precisão e consistência. A aplicação aqui apresentada cumpre estes dois objectivos. A análise dos requisitos do processo de avaliação resultou em um modelo de dados flexível, usado no protótipo apresentado, apoiando o processo de tomada de decisão na transferência selectiva de embriões

Integrating enterprise architecture and Np Iso 4457

The growing importance of NP ISO 4457 and Enterprise Architecture (EA) is becoming increasingly recognized. However, since they are distinct governance approaches with different perspectives, organizations end up facing several challenges, which leads to efficiency problems, waste of resources and misalignment. This thesis proposes to overcome such problems by integrating NP ISO 4457 with EA. This way, a Reference Architecture is developed, using Archimate, which helps organizations to conform to the Standard’s requirements, by determining how processes and resources are organized and realized. This is a unique contribution, since the Reference Architecture can be applied generically to every organization

Experiencing AR in retail: The influence of moment marketing and avatars on consumer behaviour

The development of augmented reality experiences is growing, as its adoption from companies and consumers registers a steady rise. As research is still catching up with the fast adoption of augmented reality solutions, the aim of this study was to investigate the effects of using a shopping assistant, through augmented reality technology, on the consumers’ emotional and cognitive responses, and how it would affect their buying behaviours. A prototype of an application to assist consumers inside a supermarket store was developed, applying a moment marketing strategy, and using HoloLens glasses. By studying the reactions to a number of product suggestions, it was found that whilst the level of brand-moment fit is not yet a big influencer on consumers’ responses and behaviours, the presence of the avatar as the assistant impacts their decisions and heightens their cognitive responses. The results show that a media rich augmented reality experience influences how customers behave in a retail store, and how they make their purchase decisions, ultimately changing how consumers relate to the brands involved in such experiences. At a time when managers in every industry work to capture the attention of consumers, the present study shows how relevant content remains important in every communication activity, even in an innovative augmented reality retail shopping experience.O desenvolvimento de experiências de realidade aumentada tem vindo a crescer, ao mesmo tempo que empresas e consumidores têm vindo a adotar esta tecnologia. Enquanto os investigadores estão ainda a tentar acompanhar a rápida adoção de soluções que envolvem tecnologia de realidade aumentada, o objetivo deste estudo foi investigar que efeitos se poderiam verificar nas respostas emocionais e cognitivas dos consumidores, tal como nos seus comportamentos de compra, ao usar um assistente de compras, através de tecnologia de realidade aumentada. Recorrendo aos óculos HoloLens, foi desenvolvido um protótipo de uma aplicação que assiste os consumidores dentro de um supermercado, aplicando também uma estratégia de marketing em tempo-real. Ao estudar as reações às sugestões de vários produtos, concluiu-se que, enquanto uma alteração nos níveis de brand-moment fit não têm ainda influência nas respostas emocionais e cognitivas dos consumidores, a presença de um avatar como assistente tem um impacto nas decisões de compra, tal como estimula as respostas cognitivas das pessoas. Numa altura em que gestores de qualquer indústria trabalham para captar a atenção dos consumidores, o presente estudo mostra como o conteúdo permanece uma parte importante de qualquer forma de comunicação de marketing, mesmo numa experiência inovadora de realidade aumentada