Innovation and international competitiveness: Portuguese companies versus Latvian companies

• Autor(a) principal: Neves, Ana Sofia da Silva
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/16493
• topic: Economia; Competitividade - Empresas - Portugal; Competitividade - Empresas - Letónia; Inovação industrial

The European strategy for 2020 considers the innovation as one of the main features to boost the progress towards a competitive and sustainable European economy. Assuming that innovation contributes for competitiveness, the current work intends to focus on the relation between innovation and international competitiveness of two European small economies, namely Portugal and Latvia. There is evidence that small economies are characterized by higher trade liberalization and higher international competitiveness. To better understand the relation amongst innovation and international competitiveness, within the scope of the two small economies under study, it’s performed a comparative analysis between both countries and employed a statistical and sectorial analysis, with a shift-share analysis. Even under harsh economic conditions, innovation occurred in both countries. The results show that the international competitiveness of Portugal is related with its expenditures on R&D and patent applications while the Latvian international competitiveness is evidenced only with expenditures on R&D. The most internationally competitive sector of is the other manufactured goods and in Latvia is the food, drinks and tobacco sectors. Both countries show evidence of international competitiveness’ potential in the sector of transport and machinery equipment.