Las decisiones de inversión en equipamiento productivo en las empresas manufactureras de la CAPV (1990-95): modelos de comportamiento y resultados

The objetive of the doctoral thesis is to study how investment decisions are being made in basque manufacturing firms. The decision under study is the investment decision in manufacturing facilities. These decisions can be regarded as crucial since they can shape the future of the firm.

First of all, we have analysed the impact of investment decisions on basque manufacturing firms competitiveness during 1990-95 comparing with Spain and other some countries of the EU. For this study we have used economic and financial data of entreprises provided by "Central de Balances del Banco de España" for basque enterprises and by "BACH Proyect" (Bank for the Accounting of Companies Harmonized) for enterprises in Spain, Germany, France and Italy. The main conclusion of this study is that the capacity installed in excess in basque manufacturing firms compared with its european competitors is making them less competitive.

Then a literature review about different theorical approaches for analysing an investment decision is carried out. The main variables used in approach are identified and we propose five working hipothesis.

Finally the empirical study of investment decision-making processes applied in basque manufacturing firms is carried out. Data has been collected through mailed questionnaries addressed to the top managner of 1464 manufacturing firms of over 20 employees in a wide range of industries.

The items of the questionnaire aim to discover the variables that determine the decision making process followed by the firms under study. Most of the data is of qualitative nature and has been subjected to statistical analysis.

The questionnaire has been designed to collect information about firm"s size, industry where the firm is operating in, the type of investment, objetives of the investment in manufacturing facilities, the way in which the decision is made, the effects of the investment, results accomplished and further information about future investment previsions. Information collected will then help us to establish the main features of the investment processes in basque manufacturing firms, so we can identify the main investment decision-making models used un basque manufacturing firms.

232 firms have answered to the questionanaire, representing an 16% of the total.

The main conclusions of the research are the following:

Most of the firms under study have used partial information for their decision-making. The information about market and customers is not considered in the decision-making process. Basque manufacturing firms have used partial models for the decision-making.

In general, the variables considered by firms in the study of the investment give more importance to the short than to the long term. These variables doesn`t allow to basque firms to establish good previsions about the future.

Basque manufacturing firms should improve their decision-making models in order to solve the poblem of the capacity installed in excess detected in the international comparative study