“Effectiveness assessment of research organizations” Doctoral Thesis

Author, institution: Rasa Lalienė, Kaunas University of Technology

Science area, field: Social Sciences, Economics – 04S

The Doctoral Dissertation is available at the libraries of Kaunas University of Technology (K. Donelaičio St. 20, Kaunas) and Lithuanian Energy Institute (Breslaujos g. 3, Kaunas).

Scientific supervisor: Prof. Dr. Algimantas SAKALAS (Kaunas University of Technology, Social Sciences, Economics, 04S).

Dissertation Defence Board of Economics Science Field:
Prof. dr. Vytautas SNIEŠKA (Kaunas University of Technology, Social Sciences, Economics – 04S) – chairman;
Prof. dr. Bronius NEVERAUSKAS (Kaunas University of Technology, Social Sciences, Economics – 04S);
Prof. dr. Rytis KRUŠINSKAS (Kaunas University of Technology, Social Sciences, Economics – 04S);
Prof. dr. Violeta PUKELIENĖ (Vytautas Magnus University, Social Sciences, Economics – 04S);
Prof. dr. Vlada VITUNSKIENĖ (Aleksandras Stulginskis University, Social Sciences, Economics – 04S).

Annotation:

As the processes of international competition and business growth based on knowledge gathers increasing momentum, the role of Research and Development (R&D) in society becomes ever more important. The increase in demand for R&D caused an expansion of research organizations (ROs) and indicates the problem of their effectiveness assessment. Traditional methods for effectiveness assessment that are based on profitability, net profit, return on equity and other indicators and that are used in business enterprises cannot be applied to ROs successfully as they differ from business enterprises in work content, specificity of created products, spontaneity of activities, time lag between the development stages and production of results. ROs differ in forms of ownership, mission and range of activities, all of which determine the specialization of activities undertaken in ROs, the specifics of the processes executed, varying need of resources and, of course, the variety of products created.
The dissertation presents the concept of effectiveness assessment in ROs together with the postulates of effectiveness assessment in ROs, which must be taken into account in order to produce valid effectiveness assessment results. Based on these postulates, the ROs effectiveness assessment structure and the processual effectiveness assessment model were created. A model allows the evaluation of either the different stages of ROs activities or the general effectiveness according to the type of activities undertaken.