scholarly journals Creativity, innovations and firm performance in an emerging transition economy

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nebojša Stojčić ◽  
Iraj Hashi ◽  
Zoran Aralica

Despite the longstanding consensus that creativity is the seedbed of innovation, the limited literature in this area fails to explore the contribution of various aspects of creativity to different stages of the innovation process or the mechanisms used by the management to foster the creativity of employees. This paper adopts a more complex strategy in order to highlight the role of creativity in the entire innovation process from the decision to innovate to investment in innovation, the transformation of innovation input into output and the effect of innovation output on productivity. A multi – stage CDM – type model encompassing different elements of creativity and practices designed to enhance creative potential is applied to the most recent Community Innovation Survey data. In modelling the management of creativity a distinction is made between decisions of firms to hire creative employees and the methods used to foster creativity of personnel such as multidisciplinary work teams, financial incentives and training for creativity. The results indicate that employees with creative skills and the adoption of creativity – enhancing methods by the management are important factors for innovation and better performance of enterprises. They also point to sectoral differences in the impact of creativity on innovation.

2017 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Doran ◽  
Geraldine Ryan

AbstractThis paper analyses the impact of stimulating staff creativity and idea generation on the likelihood of innovation. Using data for over 3,000 firms, obtained from the Irish Community Innovation Survey 2008-2010, we examine the impact of six creativity generating stimuli on product, process, organisational and marketing innovation. Our results indicate that the stimuli impact the four forms of innovation in different ways. For instance, brainstorming and multidisciplinary teams are found to stimulate all forms of innovation, rotation of employees is found to stimulate organisational innovation, while financial and non-financial incentives are found to have no effect on any form of innovation. We also find that the co-introduction of two or more stimuli increases the likelihood of innovation more than implementing stimuli in isolation. These results have important implications for management decisions in that they suggest that firms should target their creative efforts towards specific innovation outcomes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 294-314 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Tavassoli

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of innovation on the export behavior of firms. Design/methodology/approach Using two waves of Swedish Community Innovation Survey merged with register data on firm-level, the authors estimate the influence of the innovation output and innovation input of firms on their export propensity and intensity. Findings The authors find that the innovation output of firms (measured as sales due to innovative products) has a positive and significant effect on their subsequent export behavior, particularly on export intensity. The results also show that there is no direct effect of innovation input (innovative efforts) on export behavior. Originality/value This is one of the first paper that clearly distinguishes between input and output parts of innovation process and empirically investigate their differentiated impact on export behavior of a representative sample of firms in an entire economy.


Author(s):  
Armando Silva

In this study I test the importance of several Human Resource variables to the innovation capacity of portuguese firms but also the effects that the innovation process generates on Human Resources. A branch of the innovation literature states that the ability of firms to innovate relies on an innovative capacity, which, in turn, depends on several factors, both internal and external to enterprises. One of those factors is the effort of firms to train their personnel specifically in order to enable them to innovate. The present test is applied to 4818 Portuguese enterprises for the period 2002-2004 through the use of the fourth Community Innovation Survey data. In order to evaluate the contribution of Human Resources to innovation I have estimated several knowledge Production Functions, mainly using probits and tobits. In that framework it is assumed that innovation depends on some inputs (as the training of personnel) and on information-flows from the existing knowledge stock (as clients). I have found significant the role of personnel training for the innovative process of Portuguese firms. Moreover, I also found that the lack of qualified personnel hinged critically more innovative performance of firms and, in addition, it is noticed that the improvement of productivuty (cost reduction) was the main effect of innovation in Portuguese firms.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-207
Author(s):  
Umar Farooq ◽  
Muhammad Ali Jibran Qamar ◽  
Krishna Reddy

This research investigates the opportunity cost as an indirect cost of financial distress from two perspectives. First, indirect cost is estimated using multi-stage financial distress and non-linear proxy of debt. Second, receivable and inventory management are studied as determinants of indirect cost. The sample includes ongoing Pakistani firms that were healthy in the previous year and documenting positive gross profit. Results showed that firms bear opportunity loss primarily due to leverage rather than multistage financial distress. However, a non-linear relationship is found between leverage and indirect cost. Results further explored the impact of multistage financial distress on internal operations, i.e., working capital policies. It is found that firms manage receivable and inventory simultaneously during the multistage financial distress. Results revealed that increasing receivables and decreasing inventory is suitable during the transition of healthy firms to initial stage of financial distress, i.e., profit reduction. However, decreasing receivables, along with holding more inventory, is recommended for healthy firms that face liquidity problems subsequently. It is concluded that managers can reduce the indirect cost after deploying the optimal debt ratio and recommended receivable and inventory management policies.


2008 ◽  
Vol 54 (No. 8) ◽  
pp. 358-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Ubrežiová ◽  
K. Wach ◽  
J. Horváthová

The main attention of the submitted paper is devoted to the comparison of development of entrepreneurship in Slovak and Polish small and medium-sized he enterprise sector. The conditions for blooming entrepreneurship are created in the national economy. Especially the role of SMEs in the transition economy, both in Slovakia and Poland, has the impact on SMEs. The entrepreneurship of small and medium-sized enterprises is extended in the whole Slovakia. From the viewpoint of the regional structure, most enterprises are located in the Bratislavský region (30.4%), Košický region (11.8%), Žilinský region (10.1%) and Trenčianský region (10.1%). On the other hand, the least of enterprises were registered in the Nitrianský region (8.9%), Trnavský region (9.2%) and Banskobystrický region (9.6%). Small and medium entrepreneurship is diversed throughout Poland. The average small and medium entreprenership ratio is 44.5, while the highest is in the Mazowieckie region – 55.2% and the lowest in the Podkarpackie region – 30 %. The supporting system for private entrepreneurship in both countries, Slovakia and Poland, is very similar and the entrepreneurs are satisfied with its offer and help.


2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 543-562
Author(s):  
Katerina Toshevska-Trpchevska ◽  
Elena Makrevska Disoska ◽  
Dragan Tevdovski ◽  
Viktor Stojkoski

The varieties of the national innovation systems among European countries are reflected in the large differences, discrepancies and sometimes unexpected results in the innovation processes and their influence on labor productivity growth. The goal of this paper is to find the differences between the drivers of the innovation systems and their influence on growth of productivity between two groups of countries with different institutional settings in the period of the financial and economic crisis in Europe. The first group consists of a selection of CEE (Central and East European) countries. The second group consists of Germany, Norway, Spain and Portugal. In order to measure the role of innovation on productivity growth we use the CDM (Crépon, Duguet and Mairesse) model of simultaneous equations. The model directly links R&D engagement and intensity to innovation outcomes measured either as process or product innovation, and then estimates the effectiveness of the innovative effort leading to productivity gains. The company-level dataset is drawn from the Community Innovation Survey (CIS10). There is one common result for the two groups, that in general the probability for a typical firm to engage in innovation increases with its size. The other factors influencing the decision process differ. A firm’s productivity increases significantly with innovation output, but only with firms operating in Western Europe. The results for firms in Central and Eastern Europe indicate that these countries’ national innovation systems are vulnerable, and in periods of crises higher level of innovation output leads to lower labor productivity. Therefore, systemic faults in the national innovation systems result in their unsustainability, especially visible in periods of crises, as was the case in 2008–2010. When it comes to Western European countries, the financial and economic crisis did not have negative effects on their innovation systems as innovation activity resulted in higher levels of labor productivity. Regarding the CEE group of countries, the crisis influenced both the innovation process and labor productivity as a whole negatively.


2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (198) ◽  
pp. 7-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iraj Hashi ◽  
Nebojsa Stojcic

The impact of innovation activities on the performance and competitiveness of firms, industries, and nations has been a matter of considerable interest over the past few decades. The existing empirical work has widened our knowledge of the complexity of the innovation process and its impact on the ability of firms to compete. This study investigates how knowledge spillovers generated through firms? innovation activities affect the ability of their industries to compete in terms of quality. The data from the Community Innovation Survey 2006 for several EU member and candidate countries that have recently become available are combined with other EU-wide datasets to create an industry database containing information on innovation activities and performance at industry level. A simultaneous equations framework is used to examine the interdependencies between knowledge spillovers, innovation activities, quality upgrading, and the market share of industries from the selected countries in the single European market. The results of the investigation provide support for the relationship between innovation, quality upgrading, and market share of industries, and point to several types of spillover which are relevant for the competitiveness of national industries in EU member states.


2007 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tõnis Mets ◽  
Merike Leego ◽  
Tiit Talpsep ◽  
Urmas Varblane

AbstractSpin-off biotech companies often have difficulties in creating competitive advantage through protection of their intellectual property, due to their limited human and financial resources. Having considered the value of the intellectual property and questions of enforceability, spin-off companies should use patenting only for inventions with a high market value and high patent enforceability; otherwise, publishing early or keeping the invention a trade secret should be preferred. This allows the inventor to benefit from operational freedom while maintaining low costs. The impact of the protected intellectual property on the success of the firm depends on its speed of entry into the market and when it reaches break-even point. In a transition country with a poorly developed entrepreneurial environment, patents may expire before the spin-off company has produced any profit from its expenditures on the protection of the intellectual property. It should also be remembered that their products may contain modules which are already protected by other inventors. Consequently, a strategically fundamental issue for the success of spin-off firms is the careful selection of the markets in which to operate, and the choice of the proper degree and method of intellectual property protection.


2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 564-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nebojsa Stojcic ◽  
Iraj Hashi ◽  
Edvard Orlic

Purpose Creativity is often referred to as a seedbed of innovation. As such it holds the key to better performance and the competitiveness of firms. To better understand how creativity influences birth and commercialization of innovations and productive efficiency of firms the paper investigates how hiring of employees with different creative skills impacts innovation process and productivity. The purpose of this paper is to determine the role of creativity in innovation behavior and productive efficiency of firms. Design/methodology/approach Theoretical framework of the paper rests on pillars of evolutionary, Schumpeterian and endogenous growth literature contributions to the economics of innovation. The multi-stage analytical framework is applied to examine contribution of creativity to the decision of firms to innovate, investment in innovation activities, commercialization of innovations and firm efficiency. The econometric techniques of generalized tobit and simultaneous equations framework are applied to confidential data from the UK Innovation Survey in 2010-2012 period. Findings The investigation broadens our understanding of factors and forces that shape innovation process and improve productive efficiency of firms. It provides empirical evidence on an impact of the effectiveness of innovation process on the productivity of firms. The results reveal that creative skills contribute to the generation of novel ideas and investment in research and development but the ability to meet customer requirements draws from other organizational skills such as marketing or organizational innovations. Differences are revealed among economic sectors with respect to the forces driving the innovation process. Research limitations/implications Further research will be needed to investigate cross-country differences in management of creativity and its contribution to the innovation process and productivity. The limited availability of data on creativity and innovation activities of firms presents the most important limitation in this sense. The framework set by this paper can serve as direction for further investigations. Practical implications The results provide implications to managers regarding the management of innovation process. First, the study reveals how creative potential of employees can be optimally exploited in different stages of innovation process. Second, the research highlights number of other factors relevant in this process from the utilization of information, subsidies and the general management of human resources. Finally, the results suggest that sectoral heterogeneity should be taken into account in management of innovation activities of individual firms. Originality/value While the impact of creativity on innovation has been addressed previously, this paper is one of first attempts to examine the linkages between management of creativity, effectiveness of innovation process and productive efficiency of firms within a single framework. One of reasons for this is the fact that it relies on the confidential dataset of firms not easily accessible to researchers.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document