International trade between Hungary and Russia within the development of the pharmaceutical industry

The global pharmaceutical market is one of the most innovative and dynamically developing sectors of the global economy. In addition, this industry can be considered highly profitable. Its role has especially increased in the context during the coronavirus pandemic. This article examines trade relations between Russia and Hungary in the pharmaceutical sector. For the Hungarian economy, the pharmaceutical industry is one of the traditional and most innovative sectors of the economy: about 86% of the manufactured products are exported. Hungary is among the top 20 largest exporting and importing countries of pharmaceutical products. The main partners of Hungary are the EU countries. Russia remains an important partner of Hungary in the export of pharmaceutical products, however, it we should note the downward trend of the Russian share in Hungarian exports, due to the sanctions policy on the part of the EU. After the imposition of sanctions in 2014, the growth rate of the Russian pharmaceutical market slowed down, which also negatively affected the volume of trade cooperation with European partners. Russia has traditionally been a major importer in the global pharmaceutical market. An important problem is the reduction of drug import dependence and the expansion of exports. For Russia, this will be possible thanks to the development of unique innovative products. Hungary is an attractive country for the development and expansion of Russia's trade relations in the global pharmaceutical market. For both countries, the pharmaceutical industry is strategically important. The situation with the coronavirus pandemic has shown that political differences can be leveled. Hungary became the first European country to conclude a contract with Russia for the supply of Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. Thus, there is a high economic potential to make up for the lost pharmaceutical relationship between the two countries.

Why Not STEM? A Study Case on the Influence of Gender Factors on Students’ Higher Education Choice

The gender gap in STEM-related job positions is a fact, and it is closely related to the low percentage of women studying STEM degrees. This poses a problem because Europe, as well as the United States and the rest of the developed countries, keep demanding the best engineers and scientists to continue developing innovative products. This problem can thus be approached by answering, firstly, the following question: Why are women not studying STEM degrees? In this paper, we summarize the factors, found in literature, that influence students—both boys and girls—to not study STEM, particularly engineering, computer sciences and technology. We study these influence factors in a sample of N = 338 students from a secondary school placed in the south of Spain; we carry out a survey in order to find out if those students fill out the same answers other researchers have found and published in the related literature. Our main conclusions are as follows: The results confirm that the number of women in technical courses decreases when the level of the course increases; the lack of role models is not an impediment for girls to feel comfortable; unlike boys, girls will not choose engineering, even if their scoring in STEM is good; and we found that girls and women see themselves as not capable of studying an engineering degree more than boys and men do. These results contribute to a deeper understanding of the situation regarding the gender gap in STEM fields in ages in which both girls and boys must choose their future studies.

Study of innovation activity dynamics in Russia’s federal districts

The dynamics of indicators of innovation activities of Russia’s federal districts over 2005– 2019 has been studied. During this period, there has been an increase in the number of organisations that carried out research activities, and also in the total domestic expenditure on research and development. The number of new production technologies and the volume of innovative products produced has increased, and the payback rate on research and development costs has risen in all regions. The trends of decreasing in the innovation activities of organisations and a significant reduction in the number of personnel employed in the field of research and development have been detected. The share of new products in the total volume of products shipped remains low. This situation requires national and regional authorities to take appropriate regulatory actions.

Adoption of Wearable Technology Devices

With rapid change in technology worldwide, innovative products such as wearable technology devices tend to have an uprising trend. Consumers, however, are not necessarily adaptive in their nature and their perception is shaped by many factors. The aim of this research is to investigate the consumer acceptance of wearable technology devices, specifically smartwatches. The study extends the widely used technology acceptance model with the introduction of new variables. For the purpose of the study, survey data was collected from German and Turkish university students. The overall results provide validation to previous literature while introducing new factors for consumer acceptance of technology products, wearable technology devices, and smartwatches. Importance of this research comes from the innovative and promising nature of the wearable technology devices concept, the lack of work on smartwatches in literature, as well as the cross-cultural nature of the study. The study also has managerial implications for technology companies who chase after growth in their businesses.

Stimulating Creativity and Innovation Through Apt Educational Policy

The gap between expected and actual skillsets to drive workforce creativity and developing innovative products and services in recent times suggests the need for a thorough review of educational policy. The required level of creativity and innovation could be stimulated through educational policy review and effective implementation of action plans to meet expectations in the fourth industrial revolution. A literature review approach was adopted to examine the issues in current education system, as well as the emerging trends within the system to promote creative learning. The findings show that discipline-specific instructional strategies propelled by technological innovations (educational virtual reality games) are essential in stimulating creativity and innovation. Gamification in learning pedagogies not only promotes important academic learning but also builds the skills required for success in the 21st century.

The Development of Digital Technologies in a Transformational Change in Production

The present article examines the issues of digital transformation of the production sphere (based on methods of analysis and synthesis, generalization and systematization of material relevant to the topic), which has great relevance for changes in modern production due to the transition to a new technological mode. The role of production, especially the industrial production, in the historical aspect of socio-economic development of the country is always pivotal and the competitiveness of economic systems at the micro, meso and macro levels of the country, as well as the country as a whole in the world market, depends on the timeliness of its modernization. The analysis of the production output categories allowed the authors to find out the specific weight of innovative products and give its characteristic in the aspect of production sectors: 1) high-tech; 2) medium-tech; 3) low-tech. Therein, it is shown that the first group has only 25 % of industries in it, the second has 31 % and the third has 44 %. Russia’s share of innovative products (services) in the world market is only 4,3 %, and the business sector has software deficiency. The authors draw the conclusion that, in order to intensify the modernization of the production sphere, it is necessary to widely implement digital technologies in small industrial enterprises, as well as in import-substituting enterprises, as they are more receptive to innovation. The authors examined the structure of manufacturing production and provided a description of the state of digitalization in all federal districts of Russia. They also carried out a correlation and regression analysis of the digitalization potential of the production sphere, based on the assessment of the closeness of the relationship between the use of broadband Internet and the volume of manufacturing production.

SMM-Promotion of Innovative Services in the Hotel and Restaurant Business During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Topicality. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, sms-promotion of innovative services in the hotel and restaurant business, which contributes to its development, is becoming important. It happens under the influence of modern innovative tools, which actively counteract the postpandemic crisis. The aim of this article is to determine the types of innovative services and products in the hotel and restaurant business in terms of COVID-19, as well as methods and tools for sms-promotion. Research methods. The research used general scientific methods: analysis, abstraction, induction, deduction, synthesis, inference, generalisation, comparison. Results of the research. The most common social networks and messengers, used for sms-promotion of innovative services are identified. It is established that sms-promotion of innovative services and products in the hotel and restaurant business must take place in compliance with certain rules. It is noted that an effective tool for sms-promotion is retargeting, targeting, advertising for bloggers, cooperation with influencers. The scheme of introduction of innovative products and services in the conditions of Covid-19 is developed. Conclusions and discussion. It is determined that the hotel and restaurant business is changing under the influence of Covid-19, where it is important to determine the uniqueness of individual hotel and restaurant businesses, goals and objectives, unique trade offer, key aspects (people, goals, strategy, technology) by POST method, content-plan (analysis of the target audience, goal setting, strategy selection, selection of tools). The list of actions for hotel and restaurant business in the field of sms-promotion of innovative services is offered: redistribution of the budget for contextual advertising, reconfiguration of targeting, constant communication with stakeholders, development of special offers for each target audience, organizing content on the site, constant updating of information, video, photo on all online platforms.

The System Approach to the Organizational and Economic Mechanism of the Innovation Processes Activation of Regional Economic Systems

The study is devoted to the development of the organizational and economic mechanism for activating the innovation process of regional economic systems using a system approach. The organizational and economic mechanism of the innovation process activation of regional innovation systems means an organic set of the innovation components that provide the innovation process, as well as a set of functions, forms, methods and levers of regulation to activate it to ensure sustainable development of regional economic systems. The general components of the organizational and economic mechanism of the innovation process activation are singled out, which include: economic, social, informational, international, financial and managerial components. As well as specific components of the organizational and economic mechanism of the innovation process activation, which include: scientists, enterprises and organizations, the innovation infrastructure, consumers of innovative products. The levers of influence of the organizational and economic mechanism, which are the levers of direct and indirect state and regional influence, are considered in detail. Direct and indirect methods of the organizational and economic mechanism of the innovation process activation, as well as functions of the organizational and economic mechanism are detailed, namely: planning, motivation, stimulation, organization, control. The visualization of the organizational and economic mechanism is developed. Successive stages of the implementation of the organizational and economic mechanism of the innovation process activation are offered. In accordance with the methodology of the system approach, a recurrent ratio of the organizational and economic mechanism of the innovation process activation is developed.

DESIGN THINKING: CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK, ADVANTAGES AND RESTRICTIONS

The need to develop competitive innovative products and services encourages modern organizations to search for new ways to enhance the creative abilities of their personnel. Design thinking is one of the promising tools to elaborate organi-zational potential in generating ideas and developing new products which satisfy customer requirements to the most extent. Over last years design thinking has been developed as a practically­oriented approach aimed at solving customer problems. Within the frame of design thinking, deep understanding of their values, reactions, experience in interaction with the company and behavioral habits serves as a basis for focused ideation, fast prototyping and testing. Although the key characteristics, main stages, tools and techniques of design thinking are well established in the literature, far less attention has been paid to the restrictions and conditions of design thinking application within organizational environment. These issues determined the purpose of the study. First, the paper considered the evolution of the term design thinking, as well as portfolio of its tools and techniques applied at different stages of design thinking process. Further, the advantages, restrictions and conditions of design thinking application were specified. Design thinking allows to achieve 1) externally oriented organizational goals: development of innovations, improvement of products and services in accordance with customer needs, better interaction with customers; 2) internally oriented organizational goals: development of staff experience and creative abilities, team building and enchancing a creative corporate culture. The restrictions of design thinking implementation related to its key features (focus on customer experience, fast ideation, prototyping and testing) were established. Important conditions for design thinking implementation are as follows: understanding and taking into account its restrictions, introduction of a flexible format for design sessions, and formation of design teams in accordance with the experience, competencies and thinking style of their participants. Thus, design thinking is a useful approach for development of customer­oriented innovative solutions, although it should not be considered as a universal tool for solving all organizational problems.Keywords: design, design thinking, creativity, customer experience, Stanford model, «wicked» problems, design thinking techniques. Дизайн­мислення є перспективним напрямом дослідження для науковців і фахівців із менеджменту, ураховуючи позитивний досвід його використання і зростаючу популярність серед провідних компаній світу. Нині відомі характерні риси, етапи, інструменти та техніки дизайн­мислення, однак малодослідженим залишається питання щодо меж практичного застосування цього підходу, його переваг і недоліків. У статті виявлено переваги дизайн­мислення, зокрема: оперативне вдосконалення продуктів і послуг відповідно до потреб клієнтів, тімбілдинг, новий досвід і розвиток креативних здібностей персоналу, формування креативної корпоративної культури. Для успішного застосування дизайн­мислення під час організації дизайн­сесій необхідно враховувати його обмеження, упроваджувати гнучкий формат дизайн­сесій та підбирати учасників дизайн­команд за досвідом, компетенціями і стилем мислення. Ключові слова: дизайн, дизайн­мислення, креативність, клієнтський досвід, Стенфордська модель, wicked­проблеми, техніки дизайн­мислення.