R&D investments as Possible Factors of Company's Competitiveness

Abstract

This article describes the impact of R&D investment to on the economic stability in the Czech electronics industry in the period 2007–2014. Increasing the competitiveness of companies is conditional on the systematic investments, development and stability of companies. Searching for competitive advantage through innovation may be one of the ways of how to obtaining a stab. market position in the industry. The aim of this article was is to determine whether there are relations between changes of economic indicators and the reporting process of research activities for innovative companies in the electronics industry. The research was conducted among 103 companies based in the Czech Republic, which invested in R&D in 2007 – 2013. The comparison was made between companies which invested in the 2007 – 2013 in the annual or occasional R&D. Two subgroups were established and companies in each subgroup were monitored companies according to their size. Spearman’s rank correlation was used to assess if relationships among R&D Expenditure and Operating Revenue were preserved across periods. Two hypotheses were formulated and verified on the basis of statistical data processing of innovative companies. The results showed that innovative companies had the ability to better capitalize on their asset base, and they are better able to cover their needs from their own resources better than other companies of in the electronics industry. Their ability to provide a return on equity varies by according to company size. Innovative companies showed an ability to reach a positive outcome from operating activities. The coefficient of self-financing for SMEs is for SMEs constantly above the industry mean and increases with the length of period of time. This trend was not confirmed for micro-companies and large companies this trend was not confirmed.