engleski

Regional innovation system determinants in Croatia

According to the Innovation Union Scoreboard from 2014 (EC, 2014b) metrics, Croatia is a moderate innovator along with several other new EU members. The latest IUS indicators for Croatia show the slowing of innovation activity due to prolonged recession circumstances and point to the risk of regressing into the modest innovator group. So far innovation process determinants in Croatia have been researched on the national level alone (Radas and Božić, 2009). Given the fact that indicators of innovation activity have regressed in the Age of Austerity, a detailed assessment of innovation determinants on the regional level provides an additional insight into interrelatedness of the innovation processes and performance. Using NUTS 2 level classification that was valid up to 2013, we found statistically significant differences in innovation performance among three Croatian regions by using analysis of variance (ANOVA) on a sample of 3.404 innovative firms in the period 2006-2008 and 3.390 innovative firms in the period 2008-2010. The innovation performance of Northwest Croatia is superior across various types of innovation. These findings can be explained with Northwest Croatia’s technological structure of industries that is more technology- and knowledge-intensive than in the other two regions, thus contributing to the more competitive international position of firms. Within-firm factors were also found important, attributing more to regions with larger firms and higher number of employees with university degree. The paper aims at providing relevant research findings for the configuration of national innovation system and for national innovation policy.

Regional innovation system; Community innovation survey data; innovative firms; innovation performance; analysis of variance (ANOVA)

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