Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
Paata Gugushvili Institute of Economics International Scientific
The improvement of the innovative potential structure as the basis for the national economy development
sumapy
The essence and structure of innovation potential have been considered in the article. The scientific and theoretical views on the innovation potential structure of the industry have been generalized. The necessity of complementing the innovative potential structure of the branch with the new elements, such as business processes and organizational culture, has been substantiated. The functions peculiar to the industry innovative potential in the process of strategic development of both the industry itself and the national economy as a whole have been determined.
Innovation potential, innovation process, business processes, development, innovations
The country's economic growth depends to a large extent on innovation, which is possible through the use of domestic innovation potential. Contemporary economic theories interpret innovation as a source of development, however, only if it is effectively and actively used and there is a favorable environment for its fulfillment. Innovation potential, as an economic category and as one of the basic concepts of innovation theory, is studied closely by domestic and foreign scientists and researchers who investigate the innovation development issues.
Leading scientists as J. Schumpeter and G. Mensh paid much attention to the innovation process development; they first proposed the hypothesis that innovations appear in the economic system unevenly, but in the form of clusters, or technological processes (simultaneously mastering linked innovations); they systematized data on the main innovations that influenced the economic system development [4].
It is expedient to consider the essence of the innovation potential concept through the definition of its constituent categories. The word potential (from the Latin potential means power, latent opportunity, capacity) generally presupposes the means, stocks, sources that are available, which can be mobilized, put into action, used to achieve a certain goal, implement the plan, find the solution of any problem; the ability of an individual, society, state in a particular field [5].
In the modern economy, the term potential is borrowed from physics, where the potential determines the amount of energy accumulated by the system and which it is capable to implement into practice. In a broader sense, potential is a set of available factors that can be used and put into action to achieve a certain goal or result. Potential may be explicit or implicit, used and unused. If one considers innovative potential as part of the accumulated sources in the economy, then it is necessary to define the concept as economic potential, and the innovation potential ought to be considered as one of its structural elements.
As the analysis of scientific literature has shown, there are two approaches in determining the economic potential. The first is in assessing the resources that the national economy has, and the second is in determining the economic result of using the entire range of resources involved in economic activity. That is, economic potential can be defined both at the moment of formation, and at the time of its use.
The economic potential of the country is a system of potentials consisting of:
labor;
scientific and technical;
investment export;
natural resource;
recreational potential;
consumer complex.
Economic potential is the basis of the economy, which is formed at the expense of the main productive resources: land, labor, capital. Private economists allocate four types of resources: natural, material, labor and financial [6]. Their difference was in the specification of the resource of capital, instead of which there are material and financial resources.
Therefore, there is no particular difference in approach to resource definition. The main resources of production are: capital (material that is fixed and working capital, as well as financial) and labor. These types of resources form the material, financial, personnel components and are components of the economic potential, which is formed and used in social production.
An integral part of economic potential is the innovative potential. The term innovative potential provides the growth of the system due to innovations in the economic model, introduced by K. Freeman for the first time. According to his opinion, the innovation is a system of measures for the development, enhancement, exploitation and exhaustion of the industrial, economic and social potential that form the basis for innovations.
In the theory and practice of scientific analysis, such categories as scientific potential, technical potential, production potential, etc. are distinguished. It can be pointed out that potential as means and capabilities is specified by the activity in which it is used [7]. In order to clarify the concept of innovative potential, the analysis of the terms scientific and technical potential and scientific and technical activities which are close in meaning and are commonly used in the scientific literature will be made in the article.
In accordance with the Law of Ukraine "On Scientific, Scientific and Technical Activity", scientific and technological activities are defined as intellectual creative activity, aimed at obtaining and using new knowledge in all branches of technology. Its main forms (types) are research, developmental, design, technological, search and design, research, production of prototype samples or scientific and technological products, as well as other works related to the bringing the scientific and scientific and technical knowledge to the stage of their practical use [8].
In broad sense, the scientific and technological potential is considered [9] as a "comprehensive description of the science, engineering, technology, capabilities and resources development level that society possesses in order to solve scientific and technical issues". Thus, scientific and technical activities are carried out by scientific and technical potential.
The scientific and technical potential can be represented in the form of four components:
personnel;
material and technical;
informational;
organizational.
The quality of scientific and technical potential is determined [3, c. 23] as its ability to ensure the progressive development of science and technology at a given pace. It determines the scientific and technical level of developments, innovations and has a significant impact on the innovation potential in terms of innovation with a high degree of scientific and technical novelty. At the same time, the scientific and technical potential is inadequate either in scale or in terms of innovative potential.
It is primarily due to the fundamental difference in purposefulness, but, as a consequence, in the results of innovative, scientific and scientific and technical activities. The result of scientific work is new knowledge, judgment, concepts, described in scientific publications. Its specificity is probabilistic, as well as the risk of not receiving results, the uniqueness and originality of research. Great innovations, as practice shows, are most often based on scientific discoveries, but are rarely their goal.
The ultimate result of scientific and technological activities, unlike scientific, is the materialization of new knowledge in new technology or technology in any field of production activity.
The economic potential is formed and used only in social production, and public production is divided into two directions: material and immaterial. Each of these areas includes the production of goods and the production of services, and further they are separated according to the economy branches. The development of social production is the material basis of economic development, which, in turn, is determined by the industries development that is based on the potential of each industry individually.
In the field of public industrial production, the process of innovation is characterized by the fact that with the help of new or combined existing production factors it is possible to reduce the production cost of manufactured goods. Changes in both product and production process can vary. The nature of the changes and novelty innovation can be obtained from the novation, on the basis of which it appears. Therefore, the next feature, which is also the basis for the classification of innovations, is a degree of novelty; this feature is widespread in Western Europe and the United States. According to it the following innovations can be distinguished:
a) basic (basic radical) that are innovations, which serve as the basis for the new generations of technology development, for the formation and dissemination of new technological developments. Such innovations contribute to the creation of new industries;
b) improving are innovations, which represent new models of mastered generations of technology and variants of application of existing technologies. They are aimed at improving individual properties of manufactured products or parameters of applied technologies;
c) pseudo-innovations (insignificant) these are innovations that involve minor updating or improvement of outdated equipment and technology.
Improvements and pseudo-innovations arise most often as a result of diffusion of basic innovations, that is, in the process of their transformation in time and space. S. Ilyenkova [10] gives the definition of diffusion of innovations that is the spread of already mastered and used innovations in new conditions or places of application.
As a result of diffusion processes, the number of manufacturers and consumers of innovations is increasing.
Diffusion processes associated with the emergence and spread of innovations, are used to classify innovations according to the scale of application feature [11]:
local (innovations used only within the framework of a separate enterprise);
regional (innovations that are used on a scale of one region);
sectoral (the scope of such innovations is limited to one industry);
intersectoral (innovations used on the scale of the inter-sector economic complex of the country);
national (innovations used throughout the world or in a number of countries).
Innovation process (the process of creation and implementation of innovations) can be implemented systems at the state, regional, corporate or other level of social production and economic relations. In each case, the created innovation novelty scale can be estimated relatively to the system in which they are used.
In [11, p. 32] innovations are classified as: global innovation; innovations on a country scale; industry-scale innovation; enterprise innovations.
Thus, most researchers consider potential as a set of resources at the level of its formation. The authors agree that innovation potential is part of the economic potential, and it ought to be determined not only at the level of formation but also at the level of use.
This approach allows determining the main results of the business entity through the formation and use of innovative potential. In the future, based on this assessment, one can determine the contribution of innovation potential to the strategic development of the economy of the country, industry, region, enterprises.
Innovative potential is, firstly, a set of different types of resources and factors necessary for the implementation of the innovation process. Secondly, it is a combination of the results of scientific, scientific and technical and innovation activities in order to achieve the innovative goal of development, due to the ability of economic entities to produce science-intensive products.
The result of scientific, scientific and technical activity is the innovation, which, as a result of the innovation activity, becomes an innovation. The economic result of scientific, scientific and technical and innovation activity is profit. The national economy ability technically and commercially to use scientific and technical knowledge characterizes the innovative potential.
Innovative potential as a concept is a conceptual representation of a specialized sphere [2, p. 121] that is, the innovation sphere, which is a special subsystem of social reproduction, the movement of capital invested in a specific form (risky, venture). In the analysis of the innovation sphere, the emphasis is on the specificity of the capital movement, on the particular one that characterizes this sphere as a specific one, whereas when analyzing the innovation potential at the macro level, its main advantage is the ability to innovate the production industry, which provides competitiveness that is adequate to world requirements [2, p. 120-121].
The structure of innovation potential [2, p. 125-127] includes three levels: resourceful, productive, and internal. The unity of these three components, serving each other, manifests itself when used as its triune entity.
The resource component of the innovation potential is a kind of "bridgehead" for its formation and characterizes the prospects for the specific types of resources usage. It includes such main components, which have different functional purpose: material, technical, informational, financial, personnel, organizational and managerial and other kinds of resources.
The productive component reflects the final result of the realization of existing opportunities that real actual innovative product obtained in the innovation process. It serves as a kind of target characteristic of innovation potential, as a result of quantitative and qualitative change; it itself has the potential to bring about a new level of functioning, both the innovation potential and the system as a whole.
The internal component is a "lever" that ensures the operability and efficiency of the operation of all the previous elements. It determines the ability of the system, based on the principles of commercial efficiency, to attract resources for the creation and dissemination of various innovations.
The basis of innovation potential is the innovative infrastructure of the organization (a set of interconnected structures serving and providing innovation activities) [10], in conjunction with the innovative capabilities created by other components of the potential.
Internal factors (qualifications of workers, trained employees in the field of marketing, patent and legal issues, etc.) prevail over external (demand for products in the domestic market, taxation, etc.) and when the enterprise gets from the stage of survival to the stage of development increases its value.
However, this definition of the structure of innovation potential does not entirety reveal its essence.
Innovative industry potential is meaningless to measure without an assessment of the possibility of its practical implementation. Therefore, the key resource will be organizational-management, that is, the ability of enterprise management to mobilize and organize its potential capabilities into a single system in order to obtain a synergistic effect. Then, according to the characteristics of the innovation project, other resources are located in the hierarchy. The closer to the center, the more important is the presence of this component for its implementation. For instance, in order to create a product with new properties, the human potential will be crucial: the presence of scientists, engineers and designers. At the same time, modernization of production requires significant financial and technical resources of the enterprise.
Ranking of the components of the innovation potential allows identifying the critical factors that influence the final result. However, in addition to resources, for the effective realization of innovative potential there is a need for such an element as an innovative culture that is not directly included within the structure of innovation potential, but is its essential part.
The innovative culture presupposes the measure of the company's susceptibility to innovation, the experience of implementing new projects, the policy of management in the field of innovation, the attitude of staff to innovations.
Thus, the innovation potential can be represented arbitrarily in the form of a "bundle" of vectors aimed at the final result. The greater the potential of the enterprise and the industry the more likely there is positive result of the innovation project.
At the same time, it must be taken into account that the disclosure of innovative potential encounters the overcoming of external barriers, namely, administrative, technological, infrastructural, etc.
External barriers can be characterized as an innovative climate. The innovative climate means a set of external conditions that affect the innovative potential of the organization:
opportunities for the production of new or improved types of products or services (process and technological innovations);
opportunities for changing social relations in the organization (personnel innovations);
opportunities for developing new management methods (managerial innovations);
opportunities for creating new mechanisms for product promotion (market innovations);
opportunities to acquire know-how, patents (intellectual innovations).
However, in the structure of the innovative potential of the branch, such important elements as business processes and organizational culture are not taken into account.
Methods of interaction, coordination, communication, management decisions while processing resources and obtaining final products, comprise business processes of organizations, which include not only production, but also marketing, budgeting, personnel management, etc. Unlike organizational resources, business processes are not interchangeable.
A large block of innovative potential of the industry has to be an enterprise organizational culture. Organizational culture is manifested in the form of those values, which are divided by members of the labor team, adopted philosophy, ideology of management, beliefs, norms of conduct. Organizational culture is characterized, on the one hand, as the desire of the leadership to react in a certain way to change, on the other hand, as a relation to changes among all employees.
The organizational culture in the enterprise, aimed at development, has to cultivate a positive attitude to change, a desire for risk, attention to external problems and opportunities, and the manifestation of creative approach to solve current and future challenges [1, p. 161-162].
The final block of the structure of the innovative potential of the industry is a resultant, where the results of innovation activity: intellectual and material enter the market.
Innovation potential is formed at different levels of the economy: national, regional, sectoral, specific enterprises and individuals.
The essence of the innovation potential of the industry can be considered through its functions, the main of which are "reproductive" and "scientific".
The reproductive function is divided into potential and real.
The real function, which is the subsystem of the reproductive function, is when the innovation potential makes it possible to implement the innovation process in real time, determines the scope of opportunities for innovation development.
The potential function, which is the subsystem of the reproductive function, is when the innovation potential makes the future industry economic growth possible through the use of the development of innovations created in the past and present time.
The scientific function defines the innovative potential as a set of knowledge of information resources, which allows the creation of new knowledge on the basis of learning.
Thus, the issue of forming the economic essence of the innovation potential of the industry is multifaceted. The results obtained during the study are synthesis of theoretical views on the structure of the innovation potential of the industry and the justification for the need to supplement it with new elements: business processes and organizational culture, which together with the resources of innovation orientation form the innovative culture of the industry, as well as the results of innovation activities (intellectual and material), which supplement the resource component of the industry innovation potential itself and support the innovative climate as a medium of its foundation. The functions inherent in the innovative potential of the industry in the process of strategic development of both the industry itself and the national economy as a whole have been identified, complementing the characteristics of the innovative potential as an object of management and contributing to the development of recommendations for its practical use.
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