Anne Marie Knott

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies topped the 2021 RQ Top 50 list of the most innovative U.S. companies. The annual ranking identifies the smartest R&D spenders – those companies that both spend big (at least $100 million in R&D) and provide the greatest returns to shareholders from that investment.

Anne Marie Knott, the Robert and Barbara Frick Professor of Business at Olin Business School, has won the 2021 Olin Award for a forthcoming paper exploring research quotient in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.

Faculty experts from across Washington University in St. Louis draw upon their research, their instruction, their experience and their thought leadership to proffer insight and ideas for the new administration, the new beginning.

The 2020 RQ50, highlighting the 50 companies whose R&D is most productive, were unveiled Sept. 8 at The Industrial Innovation Path to Economic Recovery Conference hosted by the Boeing Center at Washington University in St. Louis. The unveiling coincides with research forthcoming in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.

The $2 trillion plan to prop up a pandemic-reeling United States, amid the news that there were 3.3 million unemployment claims lodged in the previous week, is expected to pass the House on March 27. An array of Washington University in St. Louis experts offer perspectives on the plan.

A new study by Olin Business School’s Anne Marie Knott, steeped in research and development, finds that large companies constitute 87% of the R&D engine right now, concluding that previous researchers just haven’t had the right tools to measure the productivity of investments in this area.

Even companies that claim to have a long-term orientation worry about whether R&D is worth the investment. My research shows why companies, investors, and the nation will be better off if companies make long-term investments in R&D.

It’s curious that we heard very little from the C-Suite in the deliberations leading up to the Dec. 22 signing of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. What makes this curious is that the goal of the act was to increase GDP growth above 3 percent by stimulating corporate investments to increase productivity, but no one seemed to be asking CEOs whether the tax cut would have that effect.

Chinese search engine conglomerate Baidu Inc. leads the pack in a new ranking of the 50 most innovative companies in the world. The RQ50 ranking is based on the research quotient (RQ), developed by Anne Marie Knott, PhD, professor of strategy at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School.

The nation’s top 20 public firms could have added nearly $1 trillion to their market value if, in 2010, they had used a new tool, known as the research quotient (RQ), to determine their research and development (R&D) budgets, says its creator, Anne Marie Knott, PhD, associate professor of strategy at Washington University in St. Louis.

Which companies get the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to R&D? Olin Business School professor of strategy Anne Marie Knott believes there is a strong correlation between certain characteristics of companies and their R&D practices.  Effective R&D is a sign of firm with high IQ.  But just what makes a company smart?  Professor Knott is on a mission to measure firms’ IQ and how to improve it.  Video included.

As an engineer, Anne Marie Knott, PhD, saw a need for research that could help firms make better research and development (R&D) decisions. Now Knott, associate professor of strategy at Olin Business School, studies how companies can improve their R&D effectiveness.

A private equity acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover might be the best thing to happen to the companies, according to a professor at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis. “The public-equity firms will clean house,” said Anne Marie Knott, associate professor of strategy. “They will find the areas of poor performance and turn them around.”

Is she safe to hire?Companies with 500 employees or more can expect to be sued for discrimination at least once a year, and the cost to defend the accusation can cost as much as $15,000, even if the allegation is found to be without merit. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 (CRA-91) held great promise for protecting workers from discrimination in the workplace, but the potential cost of litigation makes some firms wary of hiring minorities. A business professor at Washington University in St. Louis has come up with a plan to circumvent potential lawsuits in a way that benefits both employers and employees.

Entrepreneurs are just as sensitive to uncertainty as anyone. In fact, several studies suggest that entrepreneurs are more risk-averse than other people. So why do they risk losing their shirts by starting a business? They have an overdeveloped sense of confidence that that they can beat the odds, according to research from a business professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Joe Angeles/WUSTL PhotoThere are companies that, like people, are smarter than others. Literally. A business professor at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a way to measure a company’s IQ based on how effective it is at innovating. Using data from SEC filings, a professor at the Olin School of Business, computed the IQs of all the publicly traded US firms that engaged in R&D. More…