The Impact of Hampering Innovation Factors on Innovation Performance – European Countries Case

AbstractIn periods of crisis, a good way for the companies’ survival is innovation. Within this context, most companies focus on boosting innovation activities, while neglecting the action of hampering innovation factors on companies’ innovation activities.Therefore, this paper aims to quantify the impact of hampering innovation factors, both in innovative and non-innovative companies, and ranking these factors depending on the intensity of their impact in both categories of companies. In this study, the research is based on identifying the correlations between each of the important factors of hampering innovation activities– such as the lack of information on markets, the lack of information on technology, markets dominated by established enterprises, the difficulty in finding cooperation partners for innovation and the lack of qualified personnel – and, on the other hand, the innovative performance of those European countries for which data was available. The study also points out the countries’ innovative performance perspectives, grouping the European countries surveyed in four main categories.By identifying the hampering innovation factors with the greatest impact on companies’ innovation activities, this study provides guidance in choosing of those factors on which companies should focus in order to achieve long-term competitive advantages and to improve the innovative performance of each country