Essays on the relationship between R&D performance and factors for sustainability: focusing on economic and societal perspectives

Abstract

The goal of an organization is survival and sustainable growth. Organizations such as firms consume resources in their economic activities for survival. However, because of its scarcity, the use of resources is not sustainable in the long term. Thus, as a major entity in resource utilization, organizations should consider sustainable development at a macrolevel, in its pursuit of long-term survival. These sustainable developments consist of three pillars: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and societal sustainability. Environmental sustainability is the principle of maintaining the amount of available resources throughout the environment. Economic sustainability is the direction of economic activity that can meet both the continued growth of the organization and the sustained prosperity of the environment, which can be achieved through improved efficiency and productivity through innovation. Finally, societal sustainability encompasses the social contribution of the organization to improve the quality of life and realize the potential to enhance the value of human resources for continuous utilization of human resources. This dissertation consists of researches to identify the effect of the organization's economic and societal behaviors on the efficient use of resources, or productivity, which is a prerequisite for sustainable development. In particular, the first essay deals with the impact of a new type of inter-frim relation, cooperation with competitors, on the R&D productivity of the organization. Then, the second essay explores how gender equality, a representative social value that can bring out the potential of human capital, affects an organization's R&D performance. The first essay identified how a new form of corporate activity, ‘coopetiton’ affects R&D productivity in value creation and value appropriation, which are two sub-processes of innovation. Analysis through the Korea Innovation Survey showed that companies collaborate with competitors showed higher R&D productivity at the value creation stage compared to those that did not. However, in the value-appropriation phase of converting generated value to financial performance, companies pursuing coopetition achieved lower R&D productivity than those that did not. This research empirically confirmed that the coopetition strategy has a double-sword effect on corporate performance. It also suggests that in order to successfully secure the value created, there must be an appropriability regime, such as patent, lead time, and securing complementary assets. The second essay identified how a scientist's attitude, which values gender equality and work-life balance, affects the quantitative and qualitative aspects of research. In achieving scientific innovation, gender equality has a positive impact on performance by enabling communication to embrace information from a variety of subjects. In addition, the work-life balance can contribute to the innovation performance of the organization by laying the foundation for creativity and attracting better workers by giving autonomy to R&D personnel. The analysis of 157 sample scientists confirmed that scientists who value gender equality carry out more influential research. Similarly, the scientist's attitude of placing importance on work-life balance proved to have a positive effect on qualitative research performance. Based on this, it was empirically confirmed that the realization of social values of gender equality and work-life balance contributed to the improvement of the organization's performance. Through the above two essays, this dissertation confirmed that the pursuit of economic sustainability and societal sustainability of the organization contributes to enhanced productivity, a prerequisite for sustainable development. In particular, the first essay demonstrated that a new inter-firm interaction called coopetition had a positive effect on the organization's R&D productivity, confirms coopetition strategy as a new option of corporate strategy for sustainable development. In addition, the second essay suggested that the realization of social values such as gender equality and work-life balance in R&D organizations is important for the increase in productivity for sustainable development.