Creativity, innovation effectiveness and productive efficiency in the United Kingdom

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 the paper is to determine the role of creativity in innovation behaviour 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 generalised tobit and simultaneous equations framework are applied to confidential data from the United Kingdom 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 R&D 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. 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 result suggest that sectoral heterogeneity should be taken into account in management of innovation activities of individual firms. 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. 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 researcher

The Competitiveness of exporters from Croatian manufacturing industry

This paper explores the competitiveness of exporters from Croatian manufacturing industry. A dynamic panel system GММ technique is applied to the sample of firms distributed across all sectors of manufacturing industry and observed over period between 1999 and 2007. The competitiveness of firms is modelled as function of their activities, characteristics and features of their environment. The results of investigation are in line with theoretical predictions about behaviour of price competitive firms. In building their international position, Croatian exporters rely on cost reductions and improvements in labour productivity. The sensitivity of these firms to wage increases suggests that labour costs still play a major role in their success on international markets. In overcoming barriers to exporting these firms rely on own resources, previous experience and cost and knowledge sharing agglomeration externalities. The positive and significant relationship between export intensity and the firms’ location in small urban areas or free trade zones suggest that some of policies undertaken by Croatian government in analysed period such as investment in infrastructure or development of export-targeting policies may have produced beneficiary effects on the competitiveness of exporters

Učinci pandemije Covid-19 na izvoznu konkurentnost poduzeća prerađivačke industrije u Hrvatskoj

The aim of this paper is to explore the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on changes in export competitiveness of firms from Croatian manufacturing industry. The analysis is based on the data about firm behaviour in period following first wave of Covid-19 pandemic. The data was collected by World Bank during August and September 2020 and publicly released in early October 2020. The results of investigation reveal that probability of decreasing export revenues falls among firms that solved their liquidity problems through equity financing, deferred payments to workers and suppliers and with the support of public grants. Statistically significant evidence of the tax exemptions, wage subsidies and commercial banks’ loans was not found. Companies with higher level of robustness to external shocks have lower probability of decreasing export revenues. The impact of introduction or implementation of online sales on export revenues is negative. Results of investigation may serve for formulation of economic policies in similar future cases

The structure and quality upgrading of Croatian exports to EU15 market

This paper aims to explore the changes in the structure of Croatian exports to EU15 market. Our analysis is nested in the wide body of literature which postulates that the structure of exported products has important role for explaining the ability of nations to grow and to provide their citizens with better standard of living. Substantial body of evidence points that, following demise of central planning, most transition economies penetrated market of EU15 countries as producers of price-competitive products but that over time some of them shifted to quality-competitive segments of market. Our investigation aims to identify whether there has been a change in the structure of Croatian exports to EU15 market, if any change was of inter- or intra-industry type and how the quality of Croatian exports to this market can be improved. To address these issues we apply dynamic shift and share and dynamic panel methodologies to a panel of 89 3-digit manufacturing industries in the period between 2001 and 2007. Our results indicate that, over the years, Croatian exporters to EU15 market have shifted from low technology intensive towards high technology intensive industries but within these sectors Croatian trade with EU15 had all the characteristics of vertical intra-industry trade, a pattern typical for exchange between developed and developing economies. Furthermore, investment in new technology, innovations and import-led spillovers have key role in improvements in the relative quality of exports

Foreign Direct Investment and structural transformation of exports

Sizeable efforts are invested across the globe in attraction of foreign investors. These activities are motivated with theoretical predictions and empirical evidence from numerous countries on beneficial effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) on host economy. Among spillover channels of FDI, one that is particularly important for open economies is improvement of export competitiveness and productivity. Through knowledge and technology transfer, integration in parent company distributor and supplier network and horizontal and vertical spillovers to other firms in host economy FDI can ease access to international market for producers from host economy but more importantly the sophistication of their exported goods and services. The objective of this paper is to explore how FDI influences structural transformation of exports (improvement in export sophistication) in short and long run of almost 100 world economies. Evidence reveals differences in export sophistication between different groups of countries and point to beneficial effect of FDI on export sophistication

Morphological Characteristics of Breast and Thigh Muscles of Autochthonous Breeds of Chickens

Morphological characteristics of skeletal muscles of autochthonous breeds of chickens are very important for meat quality and comparison with current hybrids for intensive production. The autochthonous breeds used in the experiment were Sombor crested and Banat naked neck, both sexes. For the purposes of morphological examination, tissue samples were taken from the thigh muscle (m. biceps femoris) and muscles of the breast (m. pectoralis profundus) of 5 male and female animals of each breed. After a standard histological procedure for conventional light microscopy, samples were stained with hematoxylin - eosin. After the processing of the samples for the histochemical analysis, samples were stained with the enzyme succinate - dehydrogenase (SDH) with the aim of determining the presence of different muscle cell types (red, white and intermediate). Morphological parameters, in this study, were diameter of muscle cells, nucleocytoplasmic ratio of muscle cells, volume density of connective tissue within the muscle and the presence of red, white and intermediate muscle cell types. Comparison of diameters of muscle cells thigh and breast muscles between Sombor crested and Banat naked neck have showed that kind of muscle, race or gender have no significant effect on the differences in this parameter. There were no statistically significant differences in the nucleo-cytoplasmic ratio of the volume density of the connective tissue of muscles. Red muscle cells were, in both autochthonous breeds, significantly more represented in m. biceps femoris than m. pectoralis profundus. The results of this study indicate that no differences were observed between autochthonous breeds in morphological parameters for examined breast and thigh muscle

Determinants of the choice between different innovation regimes amongst firms in the enlarged European Union

A substantial degree of heterogeneity in the performance and competitiveness of firms can be attributed to their choice between different innovation regimes. These range from small incremental improvements in everyday activities to completely new products or processes; the acquisition of knowledge from external sources to in house innovation activities; and the choice between occasional and continuous innovation. This study focuses on two important questions: what factors and forces influence the decision to pursue a particular innovation regime and how different innovation regimes affect the productivity of firms. The research is based on the 2006 wave of Community Innovation Survey (CIS) for several mature (EU15) and new members of the EU (EU10). Using multinomial logit regression the investigation shows that market orientation, organisational and marketing innovations as well as the presence of demand-driven incentives for innovation have important role in explaining the choice of firms between different innovation regimes. Furthermore, the findings indicate that firms in the new EU members are more inclined towards incremental and internal innovation activities than open innovation regime

Effect of Litter Treatment on the Occurrence of Foot Pad Lesions

Pododermatitis (foot pad lesions) is one of the main welfare problems in modern broiler production in countries with developed poultry farming. Factors contributing to the occurrence of these lesions are nutrition, stocking density and material used for litter. There are a number of different procedures that can be applied in order to prevent and reduce the number of lesions with the most pronounced defects. The experiment was conducted on broiler chickens grown in 10 buildings of 240 m2 each. The stocking density was 35 kg/m2. The experiment was set up in five treatments with two replicates. Treatment one (T1) - control with a straw litter, treatment two (T2) - litter treated with microbial preparation Micropan®, treatment three (T3) – litter with addition of lignin, treatment four (T4) – litter with addition of lignin and Micropan® and treatment five (T5) - chopped straw without supplements. At the end of the experiment, on day 42 the intensity of the lesions was scored on the slaughter line. The presence of lesions was scored using scale from 0 (no lesions) to 3 (plantar pads with more than 50% damage). Based on the results of the trial it can be concluded that litter has a significant impact on the presence and the degree of foot pad lesions. The lowest score of foot pad lesions was observed in the treatment T5 (chopped straw). Different treatments of litters may also contribute to the solution of the problem of pododermatitis since the results in all treated groups (T2, T3, T4 and T5) were better when compared to the control