THE MEDIATOR EFFECT OF R&D EMPLOYMENT ON R&D EXPENDITURES AND EXPORT REVENUES

Today's global economic conditions are inevitably forcing companies to develop a competitive advantage against their rivals to provide a long-term sustainability. An advantage based on low labor cost and natural resources, is losing its critical importance each and every day. A new approach to provide a competitive advantage is dependent on the development of information and production of new technologies which could enable the opening of gates into the arena of international markets. The main purpose of this study is to find out the mediator effect of the R&D employee numbers on the relationship between R&D investment expenditures and export revenues. It has been targeted to submit a proposal for organizational R&D employment policies and processes. Data collection has been executed by the data collected throughout the 250 most enterprises investing the most in R&D for 2015 in Turkey and also from the research of the first 1.000 exporter in Turkey. As a result of the study, a full mediation effect of R&D personnel employment on the relation between the R&D expenditures of the enterprises and the export revenues, has been observed. (c) 2017 Published by Future Academy www.FutureAcademy.org.UK