Behavioural change as antecedent to output improvement of recipient firms in government-sponsored R&D programme

This study adopts a broader behavioural additionality framework to evaluate public R&D support programmes and examine the relationships among input additionality, behavioural additionality, output additionality and firm characteristics. Based on a sample of 127 government-sponsored R&D Programmes in Taiwan (1996–2005), this investigation presents empirical evidence for various additionality stimulated by public R&D programmes. The analytical results demonstrate that output additionality is strongly influenced by behavioural additionality. The study findings suggest that government should not only measure output additionality but should also stress the behavioural additionality of recipient firms to recognize potential performance after adjusting their R&D strategy and business operations.