O31 - Innovation and Invention: Processes and IncentivesNávrat zpět

The engine that drives prosperity in the modern world is the increasingly rapid emergence of useful knowledge. The aim of the paper is to present the basic ideas of the economic theory of innovation. The first part of the paper outlines the theory of endogenous growth and technological change. The second part reveals the nature of innovation. The third part presents creative destruction as part of technological development. The fourth part explains the paradox of progress: why we produce more from less. The fifth part outlines the future as an age of abundance.

This paper explores the role of spatial effects in the innovation processes across 245 NUTS-2 European Union (EU) regions for the period 2008-2012. The goal of the paper is to verify two hypotheses. The first one deals with spatial autocorrelation, i.e., our assumption is that the regional innovation process is not a spatially isolated process but is determined by innovation activities in neighbouring regions as well. Secondly, we assume non-homogeneous responses of innovation output to changes in innovation inputs across groups of regions, i.e., a spatial heterogeneity hypothesis. Patent applications were chosen as a proxy for innovative activity and we considered research and development expenditures and human resources in science and technology as innovation inputs. In order to model the behaviour of innovative activity at the EU regional level, we constructed and estimated a spatial regional knowledge production function model and spatial regime models. The results of the analysis confirm the hypothesis that the regional innovation process is not a spatially isolated process but is also influenced by innovation activities in neighbouring regions, and we have also identified two spatial innovation regimes.

The aim of the paper is to identify differences in innovation efficiency of national innovation systems of Slovakia and selected countries of the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Romania and Sweden) in the period 2006-2015. The relative efficiency model applied uses a non-parametric method known as data envelopment analysis (DEA) in a super-efficiency version with a constant-returns-to-scale technology and input orientation. The data selection is based on innovation indicators and methodological aspects of the model. The authors discovered that Austria and Germany achieved an efficient score for technological efficiency, Belgium, Estonia, Romania and Slovakia for economic efficiency, and only Austria for overall efficiency. The research identifies peers for Slovakia among all the EU countries at all levels of efficiency, provides several recommendations for improvement and also confirms the existence of small countries' resulting bias.

We analyse regional spill-over effects from FDI on innovation activities of domestic firms in Eastern European and Asian transition and post-transition countries. The analysis is carried out using the World Bank 2009 Enterprise survey. We look also at the impact of FDI on innovation activities of domestic firms at regional level. We find the evidence for a non-linear impact of foreign firms on innovation. An increasing regional foreign presence at first reduces innovation activities and then beyond a certain point increases it. This is consistent with the literature which suggests that either effect may be plausible. Foreign owned firms are more likely to engage in product innovation and license products from other firms. We also find the evidence for the positive statistically significant impact of access to bank credit, infrastructure, size of the firm, being part of a group of firms and competitive pressure on innovation activities of firms.

The aim of the article is to investigate if there exists a systematic link between size of the firm, market concentration and R&D activity of firms. Three tentative results emerged from the regression analysis based on the firm balanced panel data 1998-2006. First it follows from a regression analysis that a positive relationship between size and R&D activity of the firm exists, which is non-linear however. Second the results indicate that a negative relationship between firm R&D personnel and industry concentration exists. If market concentration is a measure of competition than we can conclude that innovation is related to the competitive market structure. We arrived at the same conclusion when innovation was measured by intangible assets and competition was measured by Lerner index. Finally, our analysis concluded that although foreign firms are on average larger than domestic, a negative relationship between the foreign ownership of the firm and the number of R&D employees exists. In comparison to domestic firms, foreign firms have less R&D personnel.

Services have expanded rapidly over last twenty years and they play a dominant role in advanced economies today. The economic research reflects these structural changes by increasing interest in integrating services into the traditional value chain. This study aims at creating conceptual framework for measuring innovation in services and for identifying different innovation patterns in service sector. The need for the concept of innovation patterns in services results firstly from the different character of the innovation process in services and in manufacturing and secondly from the high degree of heterogeneity inside the service sector. The concept presented in this study summarizes recent approaches to service innovation and creates four groups of services according the types of their innovation activities. These groups are: science-based services, problem solving services, scale-oriented services and market-oriented services. This study represents a basis for follow-up analysis of innovation efficiency in Czech business services sector.

The paper evaluates innovative performance in terms of theoretical and methodological concept of learning economy applied to the EU countries. Implications of this assessment for quality-based competitiveness are also discussed, and the positions of EU countries are compared as to different sources of competitiveness (cost vs. knowledge-based advantage) and technology knowledge (internal innovative capacity vs. technology transfer). The theoretical and methodological concept of learning economy has so far not been applied to the new EU members. The paper starts with the introductory description of the key theoretical and methodological concepts and clarification of the applied terms and methods. The exploited data set is described and major results of the analysis of organisational models presented. The structural aspect includes classification according to industries, occupations and countries. The impact of national differences on organisational models is evaluated. The typology of organiyational models is subsequently compared against the typology of innovators and sources of competitiveness.