研發、專利對公司經營績效之影響： 以台灣高科技產業為例

由於科技的快速發展，高科技產品的生命周期越來越短，因此高科技公司無不致力於研發創新活動，企圖藉由不斷的改善其產品、製程及服務品質，以確保公司的核心技術與競爭優勢。研發創新活動流程中學者一般會以研發支出相關指標來衡量研發創新活動的輸入，以專利相關指標來衡量研發創新活動的輸出，藉此來探討研發創新活動對公司經營績效的影響；然而，有關研發、專利與經營績效關聯性的研究迄今尚未獲得一致的共識。有別於前人研究以單一數據集(dataset)進行建模分析，僅能獲得1固定斜率值及1組截距項以代表不同的產業（包含多個產業時），本研究除針對台灣高科技整體產業外，亦分別就9個台灣高科技產業進行建模與分析，透過此一安排，可以兼顧整體產業的廣度及個別產業的深度，並從更多的視角、更全面的觀察，來探討台灣高科技公司研發、專利是否會影響經營績效；另外，透過交叉比較個各產業模型分析結果的異同，以提供可以解釋前人研究未獲一致共識的可能部分原因。樣本包括340家上市公司，2,283筆觀察資料，涵蓋2010~2017等8個年度，為非平衡的面板資料（unbalanced panel data）。全體樣本計整合5個資料庫，其中公司基本資料及相關財報資訊取自台灣經濟新報資料庫（TEJ database）的4項子資料庫，專利權數則取自全球專利資料庫(WEBPAT)。分析工具採用面板數據模型 (panel data model)，統計軟體則採用免費的自由軟體R程式語言。主要的研究發現有三，其一：台灣高科技公司研發強度與經營績效多數為負向相關、少數為不相關，意謂著，台灣高科技公司透過增加研發強度的手段並不會創造更好的經營表現，研發支出可能排擠其他產業價值鏈所需資源，並造成負面的影響。其二：台灣高科技公司專利強度與經營績效多數為不相關、少數為負向相關，意謂著，台灣高科技公司單純透過增加專利權數的手段，並不會為公司創造更好的經營表現。其三：本研究主要10個產業模型（含整體產業）有關研發、專利與經營績效的關聯態樣及係數估計量的分析結果並不相同，代表不同產業間存在明顯差異，而此一發現意謂著，即便同屬於台灣高科技產業的範疇，不同產業模型的分析結果並無法代表、推論其他產業。

關鍵字

研發；專利；經營績效；面板數據分析

並列摘要

Due to the rapid development of high technology, the life cycle of high-tech products is getting shorter and shorter. High-tech companies are committed to innovation activities to continuously improve the quality of products, processes and services, thereby ensuring the company's core technology and competitive advantages. At the firm-level, researchers have used a variety of mechanism for measuring innovation performance, such as innovative inputs measured by R&D expenditures and innovative output measured by patent counts or patent citations, and then to explore the impact of innovation activities on the firm performance. However, research on the relevance of R&D, patents and firm performance has not yet reached a consensu so far. Differ from previous research, which used a single dataset as the main input of analysis, this study uses 9 sub-datasets besides the whole dataset to analysis the relationship between R&D, patents and firm performance of Taiwan high-tech industry. Under this arrangement, it is able to exam the status quo of Taiwan high-tech industry from the different points of view of whole industry and individual industries, and under this arrangement, this study tries to provide some potential reasons why previous studies have not been unanimously agreed. The sample is an unbalanced panel data, which consists of 2,283 oberservations, 340 listed Taiwan high-tech companies from 2010 to 2017. The required financial data is extracted mainly from the Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) database and the required patent data is extracted from WEPBAT. The statistical software R program is used as an assistance tool to conduct panel data analysis (PDA) of this research. The main research findings have three (1) The resutls of 8 out of 10 main models are negative-relationship, the other 2 are no-relationship between R&D investment and firm performance of Taiwan high-tech industry. It means that Taiwan's high-tech companies will not create better business performance by increasing the investment of R&D, furthermore R&D expenditures may crowd out the resources needed by other activites of industry value chains and have a negative impact of firm performance; (2) The resutls of 8 out of 10 main models are no-relationship, the other 2 are negative-relationship between patent counts and firm performance of Taiwan high-tech industry. It means that Taiwan's high-tech companies will not create better business performance by increasing the number of patents alone.; (3) In light of the relationship pattern and coefficient estimators among variables, there are some essentially different from one another among the 10 industry models of which includes the whole industry model. It means that the analysis results of one industry model cannot be used to represent or infer other industries, even the datasets of 10 industry models are all belongs to the same scope of Taiwan's high-tech industry.

並列關鍵字

R&D ； patent ； firm performance ； panel data analysis

參考文獻

Artz, K. W., Norman, P. M., Hatfield, D. E., & Cardinal, L. B. (2010). A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of R&D, Patents, and Product Innovation on Firm Performance. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 27(5), 725-740. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5885.2010.00747.x

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