engleski

Innovativeness and export performance of Croatian companies

As a result of increasing globalization of world trade and market liberalization, competition is getting a more international dimension and is intensifying. Exporting has always been an important mode of doing business internationally, especially for small and medium sized companies and small countries in general, as it represents significant opportunities for growth. However, export markets tend to be more complex and unpredictable and possibly more hostile to foreign companies. Although many researchers have hypothesized that a company’ s tangible resources such are raw material supplies, financial assets, manufacturing facilities and technology are primary determinants of export performance, they can only provide the company with competitive advantage over competitors, but they can’ t guarantee export success. Rather, there appears to be evidence of intangible resources that play the key role in the export performance. Major characteristics of the world economy today are shortened product development cycles, customer-driven markets and knowledge intensive products. A company's international competitiveness is therefore increasingly dependant upon its ability to apply new knowledge and technology in products and production processes. Companies have to adapt themselves to rapidly changing market conditions or take the lead by innovating their products and processes. Therefore, innovativeness, as one of the key characteristics of entrepreneurial behaviour becomes one of the crucial factors of successful business, especially in the international market. There are different classical and contemporary theories analyzing innovativeness as a business behaviour mode and factors that influence it. The aim of this paper is to examine the role of innovativeness in business performance of Croatian exporters. Using the multivariate and inferential statistical analysis, we have analyzed a sample of 88 Croatian exporters, level of innovativeness in their business behaviour and how it differentiates them according to their export performance.

innovativeness; export performance; international business

nije evidentirano