I'm looking for publicly accessible articles on the web that deal with
how R&D directly impacts a company's bottom line.  While specific
examples are ok, I'd really prefer to see articles that look at it in
a general business sense, or at an industry as a whole.  What I'd
really like to see is a few articles on how increasing R&D spending
can help a company profit a few years down the road.

Johnie42 --

Valuing R&D has always been problematic.  It's one reason that a lot
of research has been done into using options theory for managing. 
Might I suggest the following Google search strategy:
R&D "options theory"

Best regards,

Omnivorous-GA