The purposes of this thesis are to examine the effect of generic strategy on R&D spending and the effect of R&D spending on firms’ performance conditional on their strategic position. With the sample of 597 Taiwanese listed firms in manufacturing industry and the data period covers five years from 2013 to 2017, with the total of 2,945 firm-year observations, the results point out that firms which adopt a differentiation strategy have more R&D spending than companies with a cost leadership strategy. Furthermore, it also shows that R&D spending effect positively on firms’ performance if they pursue differentiation strategy. Meanwhile, for those that adopt cost leadership strategy, the relationship between R&D spending and firm performance forms an inverted U-shape. In a nutshell, this thesis provides the evidence and suggestion on allocating the resources of R&D efficiently for Taiwanese manufacturing firms.

The purposes of this thesis are to examine the effect of generic strategy on R&D spending and the effect of R&D spending on firms’ performance conditional on their strategic position. With the sample of 597 Taiwanese listed firms in manufacturing industry and the data period covers five years from 2013 to 2017, with the total of 2,945 firm-year observations, the results point out that firms which adopt a differentiation strategy have more R&D spending than companies with a cost leadership strategy. Furthermore, it also shows that R&D spending effect positively on firms’ performance if they pursue differentiation strategy. Meanwhile, for those that adopt cost leadership strategy, the relationship between R&D spending and firm performance forms an inverted U-shape. In a nutshell, this thesis provides the evidence and suggestion on allocating the resources of R&D efficiently for Taiwanese manufacturing firms.

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