The Role of Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) in Translating R&D Investments into Economic and Employment Growth

Abstract

The emergence of the so-called "European Paradox" shows that increasing Governmental R&D Investment is far from being a 'panacea' for stagnant growth. It is worth noting that Governmental R&D Investment does not have a statistically significant impact on employment, indicating the need to assess the trade-offs of policies that could lead to significant increases in government expenditure. Surprisingly, Governmental R&D Employment does not contribute to 'mass-market' employment, despite its quite important role in reducing Youth-Unemployment. Despite the negative side-effects of Governmental R&D Employment on both GVA and GDP, University R&D Employment appears to have a quite important role in reducing Unemployment, especially Youth-Unemployment, while it also does not have a downside in terms of economic growth. Technological Capacity enhancement is the most effective instrument for reducing Unemployment and is a policy without any downside regarding sustainable economic development.

Balancing Internal and External R&D Strategies to Improve Innovation and Financial Performance

“…Process innovation, in its turn may promote gains in productivity (Terjesen & Patel, 2017) and enables cost reduction by implementing improvements in the production process (Moutinho, Au-Yong-Oliveira, Coelho, & Manso, 2015). Radical innovations even have the power to change the whole industry, by transforming new ventures in industry leaders and moving incumbents out (Hill & Rothaermel, 2003;Schoenmakers & Duysters, 2006).…”

The role of innovation for leveraging regional development

“…Similar findings were achieved by Heidenreich (2009) in a study of 270 regions from 27 European countries. Moutinho et al (2015), in an empirical study of 158 regions from 18 European countries, identified that technological capacity enhancement, which is strongly related to the innovation capacity of the whole region, is effective for reducing unemployment without threatening sustainable economic development.…”

“…The mechanism that allows this contribution is the knowledge spillover that occurs from the firm or the network of firms that invested intensely on R&D for the local industries they compete and for the region as a whole. It expands the opportunities related to technology and leverages the capacity to recognize and exploit new business opportunities in general (MOUTINHO et al, 2015). One common way innovative regions organize itself and its RIN is by clusters specialized in one or some closely related industrial sector (GIULIANI;BELL, 2005).…”

“…Product innovation enables the introduction of new products into more markets (GALINDO; MÉNDEZ, 2014), which create new demands or fill demand gaps (BEUGELSDIJK, 2010), allowing to increase revenues. Process innovation increases workers' productivity(TERJESEN;PATEL, 2017), and transforms fixed costs into variable costs, enabling cost reduction(MOUTINHO et al, 2015). And both types of innovation allow the accumulation of…”

Implementation of the model of 'Transformational managerial competences' in the process of restructuring of 'Zastava machines A.D.', Kragujevac

“…Organizations may take the initiative in relation to the discontinuity -that means they can actively try to create those changes, thus "rewrite the rules of the competitive match". Studies have shown that smallest companies have a need to develop a strategic orientation and routines that will help them to cope not only with the "steady-state" of innovation, but also with a discontinuous innovation at the same time (Moutinho1, R., et. al., 2015).…”