Does research pay?:An analysis of R&D expenditure and economic performance in small and medium sized enterprises

In order to develop or protect competitive advantages, companies, besides other initiatives, increasingly invest more and more in research and development (R&D) to foster innovation and dynamic capabilities. Consequently, discussions about the effectiveness and benefit of R&D expenditure have become popular in the recent years. This paper is dealing with the topic "Does research pay? An analysis of R&D expenditure and economic performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)". It was written in the second semester on the module of "Research Methods" to obtain a Master of Business Administration. In the first part, the theoretical basis for innovation management, calculation of benefit, evaluation methods of R&D initiatives in companies are given. The second part presents a quantitative analysis of the efficacy of R&D expenditure and economic performance of SME based on a data set produced from the Statistisches Bundesamt Germany by using MS Excel and the programming language "R". Finally, this assignment provides a summary, an outlook, and a recommendation for further research.