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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.
In the first part of this book the theoretical basis for innovation management, calculation of benefit, and 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 and by using MS Excel the programming language "R". Finally, this research provides a summary, an outlook, and a recommendation for further research.

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Axel Jörn, B. Eng., was born in 1982 in Güstrow. After his apprenticeship to a "System Mechanic" in a small handcraft firm he became further qualified to a "State Certified Technical Engineer - Machine Construction". From 2006 to 2015 he made practical engineering and project management experience in the aviation industry at Airbus in Hamburg. From 2009 to 2013 he studied beside his full time job to become a "Bachelor of Engineering -Mechatronic-" and he made his "Project Management Professional (PMP)" certification at the Project Management Institute (PMI) in 2014. From 2014 to 2016 Jörn got through a "Master of Business Administration (MBA) Program" at the FOM Hochschule für Ökonomie & Management in Hamburg. In the year 2015 he changed from Airbus to Siemens and became project manager for the building automatisation in the wind energy sector.

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