R D INVESTMENTS OF MANUFACTURING FIRMS IN TRAKYA REGION

: Research and development investments and the resulting technological progress affect the competitiveness and profitability of firms. This improves economic growth eventually. However, research and development activities have a risk of failure, and due to this feature, such investments are considered as sunk costs. While successful R&D will have a positive effect on the firm's performance, unsuccessful R&D will have many negative effects from the value to the profitability of the firm. This study aims to report the characteristics of R&D investments of industrial companies operating in the Thrace Region. In addition, firms that have invested in R&D and firms that have not made any R&D expenditures will be compared on the basis of turnover and growth in the number of employees, which we consider as performance criteria. Our results show that R&D investing have higher turnover growth