This paper investigates the influence of research and development (R&D) cooperation on the creation of spillover effects for sustainable firms in the chemical industry. We explore the evidence for the origin of knowledge spillovers derived from cooperation amongst firms and universities and R&D organizations as well as to test the influence of internal/external financial support on these effects. The results confirm that when firms acquire knowledge from internal sources, this leads to increased innovation and sustainable performance. We have proved that internal expenditure results in increased internal knowledge spillovers. These findings may be specific for Central and Eastern (CEE) transition countries, indicating their efforts to build path-dependent structures based on knowledge institutions and businesses as well as knowledge networks. However, this study also provides a more "global" contribution to the knowledge spillover effect theory. It shows that a firm's cooperation both with universities and with other firms promotes different types of knowledge spillovers and can affect diverse modes of sustainable activities in innovation.

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In the present day, innovation has become a key element of competitive advantage. However, most countries are failing in their innovative activities, and their innovative performance is below that of the EU average. Therefore, the European Commission annually publishes its Innovation Union Scoreboard, which provides a comparative assessment of the EU member states’ research and innovation performance. The countries are divided into four groups according to their innovation performance: innovation leaders, strong innovators, moderate innovators, and modest innovators. In this paper, we have selected countries whose innovation performance was close to, below, or well below that of the EU average in 2015, and we have performed microeconomic analysis of the situation in these countries’ firms to analyze the conditions of their innovation environment and uncover barriers to their innovation activities. We analyzed firms in the manufacturing industries in Slovenia (a strong innovator), Croatia (a moderate innovator), and Romania (a modest innovator) by using original multiple regression models and data from the 2010–2012 Community Innovation Survey. The results demonstrate the different backgrounds for innovation in each country. In Romania, there is a lack of both a satisfactory environment for innovation and sufficient capacity for absorbing public funds; investment into innovation-related activities is also absent. In Croatia, the innovation potential has not been fully exploited. However, we show that the appropriate targeting of innovation determinants (e.g., collaboration with different partners or public financing) could lead to the creation of synergies and spillover effects that would be able to support their innovative activities and strengthen the country’s competitiveness. There is a completely different situation in Slovenia. Firms there effectively utilize the various determinants of innovation activities, and these determinants have strong influence when utilized on their own. On the other hand, results also show that certain significant combinations of determinants of innovation activities are missing in Slovenia. In conclusion, we have proposed practical implications for policy makers that would be able to support innovative activities and help each country to improve its innovation ranking.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.28.1.16111

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Prior studies revealed that government is key factor influencing firms' decisions about the implementation of environmental innovations and pursuit of sustainable development as well as shaping their environmental orientation. However, the role of firms' R&D within these processes remains unclear. This paper explores the relationship between firms' environmental regulation, R&D, environmental orientation, and environmental outputs to better understand the relationships and dynamics among them. We used the World Bank Enterprise Survey 2019 data on 737 firms from the Czech Republic and Slovenia and employed structural equation modeling.The results indicate that environmental orientation positively influences R&D and environmental outputs. Moreover, environmental regulations spur firms' environmental orientation as well as environmental outputs. On the other hand, the findings reveal that R&D is neither a key factor nor plays a key role as a mediator of environmental regulations and environmental orientation affecting environmental outputs based on the sample of selected countries pertaining to Central and Eastern Europe.

Many regions and their representatives decide on the amount of support they will provide to industrial clusters, their births, and their existing phase based on the public budget. Nowadays the efficiency of public spending must be provided. There are many examples showing situations where industrial clusters were cancelled when public support was limited or no longer available. Through the use of a special diagnostic method, one can find out if the industrial cluster is able to rise and also be viable without massive public budget support. The suggestion of a new method for industrial cluster identification is the aim of this paper. The Porter's diamond model of the cluster's competitiveness environment is the substance of the novel method.

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