Increasing the Competitiveness and Performance of Enterprises Focusing on Innovation Activity – Empirical Survey
Increasing the Competitiveness and Performance of Enterprises Focusing on Innovation Activity – Empirical Survey

Author(s): Simona Činčalová
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Social Sciences, Economy
Published by: Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze
Keywords: Innovations; Competitiveness; Development
Summary/Abstract: Purpose: The paper focuses on selected factors increasing the competitiveness and performance. It analyses specific factors, such as human resources, corporate culture, access to customers, quality and cost of production, but especially innovation activity. Innovations in general are an integral part of the activities of each company because of new technologies and new possibilities of solving those situations in this period. Innovations that are correctly applied, can give the companies a competitive advantage through the cost savings and performance improvement.Design/methodology/approach: The paper uses an empirical survey, 15 interviews with the directors and top management of the selected companies. The interview were done directly in enterprises in the second half of 2016 and lasted a half an hour. This is a random selection of companies which were willing to answer the questions (response rate was 50 percent due to addressing the known) and operates in the Czech Republic. The data were supplemented by the theory in this field and documentary analysis, including internal documents, descriptions of internal processes, employee magazine articles.Findings: There are many factors of competitiveness. Companies are trying to get as many competitive advantages as they can. The paper suggests that the innovations are one of the best ways.Research/practical implications: The paper contains factors for increasing the competitiveness and performance of companies. It suggests that the innovations are the most effective way for the development of enterprises and they should focus on them for the success. But this topic deserves a future research.Originality/value: The paper complements and extends findings of Czech and foreign studies in this field. There are lots of studies about competitiveness and its increasing (f. e. Lu, Shen and Yam (2008), Enright and Newton (2004), Bhatnagar and Sohal (2005)), but no study is comprehensive about the Czech Republics´ enterprises.

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