Abstract

The issues of innovation and innovativeness have been addressed by a number of papers, both theoretical and those including research results. However, there are few studies devoted to the analysis of factors determining innovation. According to the Author, human resources are one of its key elements. This was the premise for taking up reflections in this paper on innovation in the context of its main determinant, i.e. human resources. Innovation is one of the most important directions of the Union’s policy and is supposed to be a basis of EU Member States’ lasting economic growth and improvement of economic and social conditions. In view of the above, the paper adopts the countries of the European Union as the subject matter of analyses and particular emphasis is given to Poland. The paper’s main purpose is to assess the level of human capital – a fundamental element determining the development of innovation – in Poland against the background of the European Union countries. The paper also sets detailed objectives: an assessment of the innovation level in Poland against the countries of the European Union using the European Summary Innovation Index (SII) and the Global Innovation Index (GII); an assessment of the level of human capital in the context of innovation in Poland against the European Union countries using components of the SII; an assessment of the level of human capital in the context of innovation in Poland against the European Union countries using components of the GII; an assessment of the level of human capital in the context of innovation in Poland against the European Union countries using components of the Human Resources for Science and Technology (HRST) with its components. The research methodology involves statistical analyses. The paper uses innovation-related indices (SII, GII and HRST) and their components allowing the measurement of the human resources factor. The comparative analyses were based on descriptive distribution characteristics. Also, grouping of countries was performed adopting the EU average as the classification criterion. The geographical scope of the analyses includes 28 countries of the European Union (EU-28). The time horizon of the analyses covers the years 2010-2016. The year in which the European Commission presented the proposal of the Europe 2020 strategy was adopted as the beginning of the analyses. The analysis of the development of the SII and the GII shows significant diversification of the European Union countries in the level of innovation. The leaders include mainly the countries of Northern Europe. A similar trend is seen when assessing the EU countries in terms of the development of the human factor as a fundamental element determining the development of innovation. It is significant that most of the EU states both in 2010 and 2016 were classified in the same groups specifying the level of innovation as well as the level of human resources constituting a fundamental element determining the development of innovation. Polish economy features a low level of innovation-related indicators as well as human resources indicators in the context of innovation, both in comparison to EU innovation leaders and EU countries with a similar level of economic development, i.e. the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia.

Keywords: innovation, human resources for science and technology, EU countries, Poland

JEL Classification: O30, M50.

Cite as: Mazur-Wierzbicka, E. (2019). Human resources as fundamental element determining the development of innovation. Marketing and Management of Innovations, 1, 335-356. https://doi.org/10.21272/mmi.2019.1-28

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

References

1. Ang, J.B., Madsen, J.B., Rabiul Islam, M. (2011), The effects of human capital composition on technological convergence, Journal of Macroeconomics, 33(3): 465–476.
2. Baneliene, R. (2013), Evaluation of the efficiency of economic policy under the Europe-2020 strategy in small European Union countries, Ekonomika, 92 (2): 7-19.
3. Barnett, H.G. (1953), Innovation the Basis of Cultural Change, New York: McGraw-Hill.
4. Benhabib, J., Spiegel, M.M. (2005), Human capital and technology diffusion, in: Handbook of Economic Growth, 1. pp. 935–966.
5. Birkinshaw, J., Bouquet, C., Barsoux, J.‐L. (2011), The 5 myths of innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, 52: 43–50.
6. Carayannis, E., Grigoroudis, E. (2016), Quadruple innovation Helix and smart specialization: Knowledge production and national competitiveness, Foresight and STI Governance, 10 (1): 31-42.
7. Cornell University, INSEAD, & WIPO (2016), The Global Innovation Index 2016: Winning with Global Innovation, Ithaca, Fontainebleau, and Geneva.
8. Dakhli, M., De Clercq, D. (2004), Human capital, social capital, and innovation: a multicountry study, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 16 (2): 107–128.
9. Danquaha, M., Amankwah-Amoahb, J. (2017), Assessing the relationships between human capital, innovation and technology adoption: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 122: 24–33.
10. De Bruijn, P., Lagendijk, A. (2005), Regional innovation systems in the Lisbon strategy, European Planning Studies, 13(8): 1153–1172.
11. Del Giudice, M., Carayannis, E. G., Palacios-Marques, D., Soto-Acosta, P., Meissner, D. (2018), The human dimension of open innovation, Management Decision, 56 (6):1159-1166.
12. Delgado-Marquez, B. L., Garcia-Velasco, M. (2018), Geographical Distribution of the European Knowledge Base Through the Lens of a Synthetic Index, Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 136(2): 477-496.
13. Dino, A., Sanchez, R. (2017), View Correspondence (jump link) Science, technology and innovation in Europe 2020 strategy and its effects in Spain, Austerity and the Implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy in Spain: Re-shaping the European Productive and Social Model: a Reflexion from the South, Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Oxford, Wien: Peter Lang AG.
14. Drucker, P.F. (1992), Innowacja i przedsiebiorczosc. Praktyka i zasady, Warszawa: PWE.
15. Dzemydaite, G., Dzemyda, I., Galiniene, B. (2015), The evaluation of regional innovation systems’ efficiency in new member states of European union: A nonparametric approach, Journal of Applied Economic Sciences, 10(3): 317-327.
16. European Commission (2010). Europe 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, COM (2010), Brussels.
17. European Innovation Scoreboard, 2017
18. European Public Sector Innovation Scoreboard (EPSIS) – Methodology report (8 May 2012), Inno Metrics.
19. Fura, B., Wojnar, J., Kasprzyk, B. (2017), Ranking and classification of EU countries regarding their levels of implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy, Journal of Cleaner Production, 165: 968- 979.
20. Gasz, M., (2015), Kierunki zmian w polityce innowacji w Polsce i Unii Europejskiej, Studia Ekonomiczne. Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Katowicach, 214:216-227.
21. Griffin, R.W. (2007), Podstawy zarządzania organizacjami, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
22. Hecker, A., Ganter, A. (2013), The influence of product market competition on technological and management innovation: Firm‐level evidence from a large‐scale survey, European Management Review, 10: 17–33.
23. Innovation Union Scoreboard, 2010
24. INSEAD (2011), The Global Innovation Index 2011. Accelerating Growth and Development, Soumitra Dutta (Ed), 2011, France.
25. Kedaitis, V., Kedaitiene, A. (2014), External dimension of the Europe 2020 strategy, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 110:700-709.
26. Kudryavtseva, S.S., Shinkevich, A.I., Ostanina, S.S., Vodolazhskaya, E.L., Chikisheva, N.M., Lushchik, I.V., Shirokova, L.V., Khairullina, E.R. (2016), The methods of national innovation systems assessing, International Review of Management and Marketing, 6(2): 225 230.
27. Mazur-Wierzbicka, E. (2012), Ochrona srodowiska a integracja europejska. Doswiadczenia polskie, Warszawa: Difin.
28. Nowakowska, A. (2009), Regionalny kontekst procesow innowacji, in: A. Nowakowska (Ed.), Budowanie zdolnosci innowacyjnych regionow (pp.19-42), Lodz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Lodzkiego.
29. Palova, D., Vaclavikova, K. (2017), Comparison of Europe2020 implementation process among EU members states, Journal of Applied Economic Sciences, 8(54): 2376–2387.
30. Papadopoulou, O. (2017), Education and human capital: Driver or challenge for development?, Handbook of Research on Policies and Practices for Sustainable Economic Growth and Regional Development, 21: 40-50.
31. Paprotny, D. (2016), Measuring central and eastern Europe’s socio-economic development using time lags, Social Indicators Research, 127: 939- 957.
32. Pascu, E., Milea, O.M., Nedea, P.S. (2015), Innovation and design – Two strategic tools for entry into the European economy, Quality – Access to Success, 16: 77-82.
33. Pater, R., Lewandowska, A. (2015), Human capital and innovativeness of the European Union regions, Innovation, 28(1): 31-51.
34. Prokop, V., Stejskal, J. (2017), Different approaches to managing innovation activities: An analysis of strong, moderate, and modest innovators, Engineering Economics, 28(1): 47-55.
35. Romanowska, E. (2014), Ewolucja polityki innowacyjnej Unii Europejskiej: strategia oraz instrumentarium wsparcia innowacyjnosci w kodeksie integracji z UE, Research on Enterprise in Modern Economy – theory and practice, 2: 5-27.
36. Roszko-Wojtowicz, E., Bialek, J. (2017), Evaluation of the EU countries’ innovative potential – Multivariate approach, Statistics in Transition new series, 18 (1): 167–180.
37. Schippers M.C., West M.A., Dawson J.F. (2012), Team Reflexivity and Innovation: The Moderating Role of Team Context, Journal of Management, 41 (3): 769-788.
38. Schumpeter, J.A. (1960), Teoria rozwoju gospodarczego, Warszawa: PWN.
39. Tan, C. L., Nasurdin, A. M. (2010), Human resource management practices and organizational innovation: An empirical study in Malaysia, Journal of Applied Business Research, 2(4):105–115.
40. Wiatrak, A. P. (2016), Innowacyjnosc w politykach Unii Europejskiej i ich wplyw na kierunki wspierania rozwoju organizacji, Journal of Management and Finance, 2(2): 463-472.
41. Eurostat. Retrieved from: www. ec.europa.eu/eurostat (12.05.2018).