Browsing by Subject "R&D"

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Development of a Hybrid Manufacturing Process for Precision Metal Parts
(University of Texas at Austin, 2017) Hill, Leon; Sparks, Todd; Liou, Frank
This paper summarizes the research and development of a hybrid manufacturing process to produce fully dense metal parts with CNC-level precision. High performance metals, such as titanium alloys, nickel superalloys, tool steels, stainless steels, etc. can benefit from this process. Coupling the additive and the subtractive processes into a multi-axis workstation, the hybrid process, can produce and repair metal parts with accuracy. The surface quality of the final product is similar to the industrial milling capability. To achieve such a system, issues of the metal deposition process and the automated process planning of the hybrid manufacturing process will be discussed.
Direct Digital Manufacturing of Metallic Components: Vision and Roadmap
(University of Texas at Austin, 2010-09-23) Frazier, William E.
Essays in dynamic experimentation
(2017-08-11) Domnenko, Gleb; Stinchcombe, Maxwell; Sibley, David S. (David Summer), 1947-; Wiseman, Thomas E; Whinston, Andrew B
Innovation and knowledge are critical for the development of the modern economy. I design and study dynamic models for the funding of new research under different economic conditions. In the first essay, I develops a model for the funding of R&D initiated by an entrepreneur. In the model, the funding is undertaken by a large homogeneous pool of investors. The entrepreneur can bank present investment funds for either future experimentation or diversion. R&D activities are not observable. There are two main conclusions. First, even when entrepreneurs have full bargaining power, commitment and incentive problems imply that R&D is usually inefficiently funded. Second, stronger reporting enforcement can be welfare enhancing and improves the outcomes for the entrepreneur. In the second essay, I study funding of the projects at the early stages of the startup development. I search for the best feasible contract that can be signed by the entrepreneur and the investor. The contract provides dynamic incentives to work on the risky project in the presence of convex effort costs, private valuations, and developed credit markets. I reveal that the best feasible contract satisfies three main properties: funding is provided independent of the project failure or success; private valuations are internalized; and the work on the project does not stop until the project succeeds. In the third essay, I study how venture capitalists provide funds to entrepreneurs to finance risky projects that exhibit diminishing returns to scale. I show that the funding rates strictly decrease in time in the full information and the observable but unverifiable information environments. In the unobservable information environment, the funding rates eventually become strictly decreasing, but they may increase in the beginning.
Essays on marketing's impact on financial performance
(2015-12) Jindal, Niket Kumar; McAlister, Leigh; DeKinder, Jade; Duan, Jason; Henderson, Andrew; Rao, Raghunath S
My dissertation builds upon research at the intersection of marketing and finance by providing managerial insight on three specific aspects of marketing’s impact on financial performance. My first essay shows how marketing reduces a firm’s bankruptcy risk. Prior research has shown that two key marketing assets, advertising assets and R&D assets, increase a firm’s shareholder value. While one might conclude that the impacts of these marketing assets on bankruptcy risk are merely the inverse of their impacts on shareholder value, I argue otherwise and show that market turbulence moderates the impacts of advertising assets and R&D assets on bankruptcy risk but not shareholder value. My second essay shows how firm strategy moderates the impact of advertising on a firm’s financial performance. I hypothesize that advertising should influence shareholder value for a firm with a differentiation strategy because advertising can elaborate the firm’s point of difference into brand equity, thereby building shareholder value. In contrast, advertising cannot build brand equity for a firm with a cost leadership strategy because such a firm has no point of difference on which to build. Identifying differentiators and cost leaders by firms’ reactions to a change in accounting regulations, I confirm my hypotheses: Advertising increases sales for all firms but increases shareholder value more for differentiators than for cost leaders. My third essay shows the financial value of offering trade credit to business customers. The “finance perspective” argues that, since cash flows from a trade credit sale are delayed and vulnerable, trade credit sales should be less valuable than cash sales. I show, however, that this is not the case because the value of a sale is not solely driven by the cash flows from a single transaction – it is driven by the expected future cash flows from all future sales to the customer. Consistent with the “marketing perspective”, which recognizes that offering trade credit also builds relational assets with key business customers, I show that trade credit sales are actually more valuable than cash sales.
Essays on non-market forces and marketing strategy
(2023-06-26) Hasan, Tushmit M.; Srinivasan, Raji; Giannetti, Verdiana; Li, Kathleen T; Mahajan, Vijay; Hohenberg, Sebastian
In this dissertation, I present two essays that focus on two non-market forces that have been relatively understudied in the marketing literature: ESG pressures (i.e., the increasing calls on firms to provide information pertaining to their impact on environmental, social, and governance issues) and political risk (i.e., the risks emanating from the legal, political, and regulatory environment in which the firms operate). In my first essay, I draw a conceptual distinction on ESG and CSR disclosures, drawing on the Stereotype Content Model and using text analysis on a sample of 3,350 Twitter disclosures about ESG and CSR from S&P500 companies. In my second essay, I investigate whether firms adjust their levels of marketing spending (R&D and advertising) when faced with high levels of political risk and whether these adjustments in spending can mitigate the negative impact of political risk on firm value. I compare these effects with firms’ level of non-marketing (lobbying) spending. Taken together, my two essays examine different forms of responses to non-market forces through marketing strategy and offers insights on which strategies are most effective. My first essay shows how firms can respond to non-market forces in the form of ESG and CSR pressures through different language in their disclosures; and my second essay shows that marketing strategies may be more effective in mitigating the negative impact of a key non-market force, political risk, compared to non-marketing strategies.
A Glance at the Recent Additive Manufacturing Research and Development in China
(University of Texas at Austin, 2015) Xing, Xiaodong; Yang, Li
This paper reviews some of the recent additive manufacturing research and development works in China. A considerable amount of AM research activities in China focuses on directed energy deposition processes, powder bed fusion processes and stereolithography, with much of the effect dedicated to system and application development. Although many of the recent results are not readily available from the literatures published in China, from the available information the areas of focus for research and development could be clearly seen. Despite some speculations, the AM research in China is vibrate and aggressive, with some areas at least several years ahead of the other countries.