Comparison of Firms’ Innovation Determinants in the Era of Open Innovation: Central European Case for Efficient University-Industry Cooperation

Abstract

Nowadays, in the era of globalization, firms must face competitive pressure. This forces firms to look for new ways of increasing their competitive advantage. Various forms of cooperation leading to the transfer of knowledge between the involved entities is one of the ways to support corporate competitiveness, for example through the creation of innovations. This is especially important in the era of so-called open innovation when companies can benefit much more from external collaboration than was the case in the past. Educational institutions, as generators of new knowledge, thus become one of the key partners for businesses. The same is true about national and European public institutions, as a provider of public funds. However, in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, this kind of university-industry-government cooperation does not always end effectively. Therefore, in this paper, we analyse determinants of firms’ innovation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, under the conditions of open innovation approach. Doing so, we pay special attention to the relationship between educational institutions and firms to reveal whether and how these players cooperate. For these purposes, we use Community Innovation Survey and the data about 5,198 Czech and 2,657 Slovakian companies. The results of this study allow us to propose implications for public policy makers, but also for corporate managers.