ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses both needs as a basis for planning and control efforts by practicing management accountants. It focuses directly on factors thought to contribute to advances in American manufacturing industries and examines relationships between the four critical variables Changes in Research and Development Expenses (C_RD), Changes in Capital Expenditures (C_CAP), Productivity, and Changes in Return on Assets(C_ROA). The Research and Development Expenses and Capital Expenditures are taken from the manual of COMPUSTAT. From the population of COMPUSTAT II, 77 companies in 20 industries satisfying all industry and company selection criteria are selected. The SAS LAG function is used to examine lags between changes in substantial investments and the specified performance changes in the selected sample. The research purpose is to measure the direction and strength of the relationships between each pair of four variables, correlation analysis is used for statistical analysis.
