| dc.description.abstract | Abstract
For the past few centuries, the Scientific Revolution and Industrial Revolution have swept the world, leading humans into a new era and frontier. “Technology” is thus the key to a nation’s prosperity. Influenced by Eastward expansion of Western Powers, Taiwan, is of no exception. Being densely populated in a small area without the blessing of natural resources, the government had planned to build Hsinchu Science Park as early as during Chiang Ching-kuo’s presidency to pave the way for Taiwan’s future, hoping to see Taiwan become a technology island of the East. Today, more than thirty years later, as expected, “technology” has helped Taiwan achieve a well-known economic miracle with a presence of high-tech products all over the world and created well-known technology companies. Successful performance can be found in industries such as Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS), semiconductor, home appliances, biochemistry, automobile and solar power.
Although Taiwan is known as an island of industry and technology, the issue of upgrade in industry structure has always existed. Over the past few years, due to increasing labor cost and market, large electronic companies have increasingly migrated to China. The flight of capital has indirectly led to insufficient domestic demand. In addition, as the development of industrial technology in Taiwan saw a slower start, its R&D and innovation capabilities are far behind advanced economies focusing on technology industry such as those in Europe, the U.S. and Japan. An OEM-based high-tech industry has less profits compared with large companies in Europe and the U.S., where enterprises are in possession of self-owned brands and key technologies. Therefore, the questions of upgrading high-tech industry and improving R&D capability have always been the pressing issues that the Taiwanese government and companies must face.
R&D capability is the key to success of a high-tech industry. However, considering the tremendous costs in investment and the uncertainty in profit return, regular companies are not willing to take a step further. Domestically speaking, R&D cost takes on a rather conservative approach toward in accounting. After following in line with International Financial Reporting Standards, the cost incurred during the R&D phase do not appear as intangible assets on the balance sheet; it appears as current expenses. The standards also provide a strict definition of capitalization. Even if company meets the requirements of capitalization, the cost incurred before the requirements were met cannot be capitalized. It will be listed as expense on the balance sheet. That is why regular technology companies stick to OEM business rather than pursuing an innovative R&D path. The article aims to target Taiwan’s high-tech industry to explore whether the R&D costs can bring real benefits to the companies while having a positive and deferred impact on company’s share price, and the research result of this article prove that the R&D costs real have a positive and deferred impact on company’s share.
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