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Given the central role of knowledge management practices (KMP) in fostering innovation, besides the distinctive characteristics of family firms (FF) regarding their innovative behaviour and results, this paper addresses two main objectives. Firstly, it deepens in the study of the relationship between five KMP -acquisition, creation, storage, transfer and application- and innovation. Secondly, we explore whether being a FF moderates the KMP- innovation relationship, a question that, to our knowledge, has not been explored to date. The empirical study to test these relationships uses data from 238 Spanish SMEs and is based on a linear regression by OLS over the dependent variable. Our results show that, consistent with the extant research, creation and storage KMP have a positive and significant effect on firm innovation whereas, contrary to previous research, no significant effect of acquisition, application and transfer KMP on firm innovation has been found. This study also finds the effect of investing in the creation and storage of new knowledge on innovation is less positive, or even negative, among FF, a result coherent with the lower level on R&D investment among FF reported by previous literature. We also found that being a FF positively moderates the negative, non-significant, link between transfer KMP and innovation, pointing to a higher efficiency of family firms in transforming knowledge transfer in innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public funding of Research and Development (R&D) is a widely implemented tool in national innovation policies. Public R&D policy instruments usually include public performed research, government funding of business R&D and fiscal incentives as well as IPR legal framework. Each one of these instruments has its own merits and they can be seen as complementary. In innovation literature, there is an ongoing debate about the driving forces of innovation and technical change, typically opposing two models: the "science and technology push" and the "demand pull". This debate as well as the theoretical foundation of R&D public funding can be translated to innovation and R&D policies but the assessment about the effectiveness of policy choices is sensitive to context. In our research we consider the specificities of follower countries and we discuss the effectiveness of two main instruments of R&D policy in Portugal during recent years: SAESCTN, oriented to support research in S&T public or non-profit organizations; and SI I&DT, oriented to support firms' R&D projects. From this analysis we draw some main conclusions and policy recommendations with particular relevance in a follower country context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on U.S. President Barack Obama's budget for fiscal year 2017, focusing on the government's investment in science and technology. Topics discussed include investments in research and development (R&D) and innovation, the government's efforts to accelerate the pace of innovation to create jobs, and the initiative to improve public health through innovation.

The article reports on the Arizona State University's (ASU) interdisplinary, solutions-focused approach to research and development (R&D). Topics discussed include the increase in the research funding of ASU, the research, innovation and economic development programs of the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development (OKED), and the proposals developed by ASU to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

The article reports on the budget for research and development (R&D) in the U.S. for fiscal year 2017. Topics discussed include the federal spending since fiscal year 2010, the composition of the proposed 2017 budget with total outlays of 4.1 trillion U.S. dollars, and the total R&D budget by agency such as the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense.

The paper deals with the accounting evidence of intangible assets by respecting the requirements of the Czech accounting legislation. The recognition and measurement of intangible assets can have a significant influence on the information embodied in financial statements of a company. The Czech accounting legislation does not provide any precise definition of intangible assets by specifying their features. It rather includes a list of intangible assets which can be recognized and some examples of expenditures which cannot be regarded as intangible assets. In this respect a more detail analysis of accounting evidence of expenditures spent on research and development is provided. The article provides a comparison of two different ways of recognition and measurement of these expenditures that are allowed according to the Czech accounting legislation. Within this process the impact of both alternatives on the balance sheet and the income statement of a specific company are analyzed. Based on this analysis one way of accounting evidence of expenditures on research and development is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy means development, and access to energy and electricity should be possible for everyone. The energy challenge for the years to come is to have a sustainable energy supply and after the week spent in Varenna it is clear that "sustainable" cannot be identified with green gas emission reduction only: it has to be an energy supply system respectful of the environment and the humankind, able to provide reliable and affordable energy to the whole world population. This is definitely not an easy challenge: no single energy technology will suffice to safeguard our future and any possible solution has to be exploited at its best, from renewable to nuclear energy, from clean fossil fuels to biofuels. Last but not least, it is the energy efficiency that, given the actual technology, may give the most important and immediate contribution to this challenge. Meanwhile researchers must examine a broad range of options and develop different kinds of technologies: only new investments on R&D can allow to meet the growing demand for energy in a responsible, equitable, and sustainable way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report presents results from an evaluation of publicly-funded R&D assistance provided to New Zealand firms. We find that additional impacts depend upon the type of R&D assistance provided to a firm. Firms that receive Capability Building assistance show significantly higher employment growth compared with matched unassisted firms. In contrast, we find no overall additional impacts of Project Funding. We found significant additional impacts only for small firms and for firms that had not undertaken R&D two years prior to receiving their first assistance. We conclude that R&D assistance has a significant positive additional impact when it is targeted at firms that are building capability; that are small and that have not previously undertaken R&D [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this coming aging society, medical device is expected to become one of the major industries. Since developing medical devices usually requires technology convergence, research collaboration is important, especially for some small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that do not have enough R&D resources in each related field. Collaboration in medical device development has some unique properties; collaboration with different fields, different types of people/institutions are often required, and development process usually takes longer. due to clinical test. However, despite uniqueness, collaboration in medical device has not yet been widely studied. We investigated collaborations in medical device development by conducting surveys and in-depth interviews, especially with SMEs in Korea. The purpose of this study was to examine various factors that determine research collaboration in medical device field to find right strategies to invigorate the medical device field in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the comparative statics of optimal weights on the use of myopic performance measures in a multitask agency model. Using Linear, Exponential, Normal (LEN) setting, the paper shows that when current investments in research and development (R&D) have higher future impact on firm value, i.e., for high growth firms, optimal weight on the accounting performance measure should be lower. In addition, an increase of firm's growth opportunity will lead to an increase in the weight of the additional performance measure relative to the weight of accounting income. Furthermore, the paper shows that an increase in manager's risk aversion increases the weight on the additional performance measure over accounting performance measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]