Optimal Investment Strategy for Research and Development Considering Dynamic Complexity

Abstract

Recently, interest in research and development (R&D) investment decisions have increased among Korean domestic enterprises. However, existing R&D investment studies only focused on government R&D investment policies while only a few studies investigated firm level R&D investment. Prior literatures also overlooked the feedback loop between R&D investment and firm performance. Therefore, this paper identifies a system dynamics model for R&D investment decision making in domestic electronics firms. The conceptual model is derived from R&D investment-related theories found in bodies of literature on company performance, enterprise activity, and market maturity. This study investigates the dynamic feedback between R&D activities and sales using the system dynamics model. In other words, the system dynamics model is used to explain the change in the closed feedback circulation structure in R&D investment activities including technology development, production process, and marketing that subsequently result in sales increase and re-investment into R&D from the generated revenues. There are two major results. First, a similar ratio of investment on technology development and production process derives the higher company sales. Second, regardless of market maturity, marketing investment ratio positively affects sales and R&D budget growth. This study provides a system dynamics model to find the optimal ratio for R&D investment and suggests managerial strategic implications on electronic firm R&D investment decision making under market maturity condition.