diff --git a/rpm/dtb.spec.in.in b/rpm/dtb.spec.in.in
index 100a985..01b9e77 100644
--- a/rpm/dtb.spec.in.in
+++ b/rpm/dtb.spec.in.in
@@ -65,9 +65,9 @@ cd linux-%srcversion
 %build
 source=linux-%srcversion
 cp $source/COPYING .
-SRCDIR=`pwd`/$source
+SRCDIR=$PWD/$source
 mkdir pp
-PPDIR=`pwd`/pp
+PPDIR=$PWD/pp
 export DTC_FLAGS="-R 4 -p 0x1000"
 %if 0%{?dtc_symbols}
 DTC_FLAGS="$DTC_FLAGS -@"
diff --git a/rpm/kernel-binary.spec.in b/rpm/kernel-binary.spec.in
index 2855f24..3ffc8da 100644
--- a/rpm/kernel-binary.spec.in
+++ b/rpm/kernel-binary.spec.in
@@ -840,7 +840,7 @@ if [ %CONFIG_MODULES = y ]; then
     # pointless to rely on its contents. Replacing by zeros to make the
     # checksums always the same for several builds of the same package.
     test -s %buildroot/lib/modules/%kernelrelease-%build_flavor/modules.dep && \
-    dd if=/dev/zero of=%buildroot/lib/modules/%kernelrelease-%build_flavor/modules.dep ibs=`stat -c%s %buildroot/lib/modules/%kernelrelease-%build_flavor/modules.dep` count=1
+    dd if=/dev/zero of=%buildroot/lib/modules/%kernelrelease-%build_flavor/modules.dep ibs=$(stat -c%s %buildroot/lib/modules/%kernelrelease-%build_flavor/modules.dep) count=1
 
     res=0
     if test -e %my_builddir/kabi/%cpu_arch/symvers-%build_flavor; then
diff --git a/rpm/kernel-obs-build.spec.in b/rpm/kernel-obs-build.spec.in
index e73b418..c528882 100644
--- a/rpm/kernel-obs-build.spec.in
+++ b/rpm/kernel-obs-build.spec.in
@@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ dracut --reproducible --host-only --no-hostonly-cmdline \
 	--modules="obs qemu base rootfs-block" \
 	--compress "zstd -19 -T0" \
 %endif
-	`echo /boot/%{kernel_name}-*%{kernel_flavor} | sed -n -e 's,[^-]*-\(.*'%{kernel_flavor}'\),\1,p'`
+	$(echo /boot/%{kernel_name}-*%{kernel_flavor} | sed -n -e 's,[^-]*-\(.*'%{kernel_flavor}'\),\1,p')
 %endif
 
 #cleanup