The dissertation deals with innovations and competitiveness of companies. It also depicts innovative environment in a real company.

The diploma thesis is engaged in the companies' innovation and their support from the stuctural funds. Its aim is to analyse impacts of support on the competitiveness of companies who implemented the innovative projects cofinanced by OPPP (programme Innovation). The general part is focused on basic concepts of innovation, their types and relationship with the companies' competitiveness. Then the study attempts to approach the actual conception of the innovation policy of the European Union and to present tools of this policy, especially OPPP. The practical part attends to analyse the indicators of competitiveness of supported companies in comparison to companies in the same industry and sector. Consequently, it evaluates the supports' effectiveness of companies groups with the biggest growth of competitiveness. In conclusion, the concrete example illustrates the way that a company can increase its competitiveness on the market thanks to innovation financed by the programme Innovation.

This thesis deals with issues related to innovation in the Czech company and their influence on their competitiveness. The aim of the work in the first part is the definition of terms: innovation, competitiveness and demand and their relationships. Attention is paid to the impacts of global competitive and turbulent world and the competitiveness of Czech companies. They show the expected basic trends of the world. The second part describes Czech industrial company (GZ Digital Media, Inc.) and its trends over the past year. It analyzes the development of the basic indicators (profitability, liquidity and business activity) and quantifies the prediction possibilities of bankrupt (Altman index, IN 05). Finally there are definitions of factors of the current success of the business, including its persistent and intense innovation and strong influence of leading figures in business management.

Bakgrund: Sedan andra hälften av 1900-talet har företag börjat se kompetens som en investering jämfört med tidigare. Då sågs istället avkastning enbart från produkter och utrustning och inte från de anställda. Idag ses även kompetens som en avkastning samt att det genererar mervärde och konkurrensfördelar. Därför får humankapitalet en betydande roll när det kommer till hur det ska förvaltas, samt utvecklas på grund av att humankapitalet inte redovisas på samma sätt som de fysiska tillgångarna och resurserna. En viktig del av humankapitalet är arbetet med kompetensutveckling och dess avgörande roll för den innovativa utvecklingen. För att hantera dessa innovationer är en viktig komponent att kunna ha kompetent personal samt utbilda dem men också kunna fördela organisationens resurser. Vid ekonomiska nedgångar som vid lågkonjunkturer är det oftast kompetensutveckling och utbildningsinsatser som företag allt som oftast först avvecklar. Detta kan i sin tur medför att organisationer behöver utforma strategier och arbeta för förändringar inför en lågkonjunktur. Detta är nödvändigt för att företag fortfarande ska hålla sig levande på marknaden. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur industriföretag blir påverkade av en lågkonjunktur med deras investeringar av humankapital. Studien vill öka förståelsen kring kompetensutvecklingens betydelse för en innovativ utveckling och hur arbetet med det fungerar inför och under en lågkonjunktur. Metod: Studien har använt en kvalitativ metod i form av semistrukturerade intervjuer som utformades efter en intervjuguide. Detta sammanställdes sedan och transkriberades. Slutsats: Utifrån respondenternas svar tillsammans med teorin har studien visat att humankapitalet är en behovsanpassad resurs som med hjälp av åtgärder skapar möjligheter för att ständigt utvecklas. Behovet av en kontinuerlig kompetensutveckling skapar även möjligheter att utveckla en innovativ tillverkning för att stärka konkurrenskraften mot andra företag på marknaden. / Background: Since the second half of the 20th century, companies have started to see competence as an investment compared to before. Instead, returns were seen only from products and equipment and not from the personnel. Today, competence is also seen as a return that generates added value and competitive advantages. Therefore, human capital takes on a significant role when it comes to how it should be managed and developed due to the fact that human capital is not accounted for in the same way as the physical assets and resources. An important part of human capital is therefore related to how companies work with the development of personnel competence in an innovative way. In order to manage these innovations, an important component is to be able to have competent personnel and train them, but also to be able to allocate the organization's resources. In economic downturns and recessions, it is usually competence development and training efforts that companies most often phase out first, which in turn means that organizations need to design strategies and work for changes in spite of recessions. This is necessary for companies to still stay alive in the market. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate how industrial companies are affected by a recession in terms of their investments in human capital. The study wants to illustrate the importance of competence development for innovative development, and how organizations tackle this during economic downturn or recession.  Method: The study has used a qualitative method in the form of semi-structured interviews which were guided with the help of an interview guide and which later were compiled and transcribed. Conclusion: Based on the respondents' answers, the study has shown that human capital is a need-based resource that, with the help of measures, creates opportunities for continuous development. The need for continuous competence development also creates opportunities to develop innovative manufacturing to strengthen and behold competitive advantages.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and propose new features in order to enhance the competitiveness of the company. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on theoretical framework such as innovation, innovation process and process management. The second part is based on the analysis of the companie s competitors and SWOT analysis. Based on the results of these analysis, the thesis further investigates the companys opportunities. Data for this research were gathered from analysis, surveys, phone and personal interviews Specific innovative steps are suggested by using the results of this research. These steps are measured through balance scorecard and then the implementation steps are described together with process models based on BPMN. The results reveal recommendation for future growth of the company.

The Master's thesis "Swedish innovation policy: success or paradox?" focuses on Sweden's public policy for innovation during the past two decades. It, however, deviates somewhat from the conventional notion that places Sweden in the forefront when it comes to innovation. On the contrary this study follows the line of thought that believes there is an imbalance between the inputs to innovation in terms of R&D investments, which are truly outstanding, and the economic outputs that have been rather unimpressive and could be higher. Using the innovation systems perspective, a theoretical framework that has grown popular with academics and policymakers alike, the thesis analyzes Sweden's innovation policy, aiming to find out, whether the government really performs the activities, that the innovation systems theory views as vital. While it can be said that the innovation policy truly fulfills a wide range of activities that the theory views as key, there is still room for improvement in several areas, due to which the innovation paradox is still in operation, albeit we can view it less as an acute problem but a rather an opportunity, which policy has not been able to capitalize on.

By the later decades of the twentieth century, retail internationalization was no longer the activity of a few multi-national retailers; revising the traditional view of retailing as a national business and the need to understand the process of internationalization. Academic research enriched the understanding of this activity, moving away from the early use of surveys to delve into the specific processes of the retailers in order to properly analyze foreign expansion activity. Initial research focused on the perspective of the firm, contributing to knowledge of the why, where, and how of the internationalization process. As this research expanded its scope, it became necessary for researchers to explore when internationalization occurs and to document what was the impact of internationalization on the host country. This call for research was made by Dawson (2003), who proposed a framework for the study of foreign impact on the domestic retailers of a host country. This study utilizes the Dawson model to measure, analyze, and explain the when and what of the retail internationalization process. In recognition of the complexity of the retail internationalization process, it was determined that the study would focus on one type of impact: changes in sectoral competitiveness. It was also determined that this study should be undertaken in a market and retail sector where substantial foreign entry had occurred and could potentially be measured, analyzed and explained. Therefore, the study is undertaken in the Canadian apparel sector between 1989 and 2007. The study was conducted as a mixed method research in two stages: an empirical study of market data and an interview study of industry experts. Since retail functions at the local level, the shopping centre was used as a microcosm of the market and provided empirical evidence to measure impacts in a temporal sense and by intensity. The interviews with industry experts were used to collaborate and explain the mall data, providing important first-hand context to explain the retail internationalization process. This study contributes to the validation of the Dawson model as a tool to measure and explain the impacts of foreign entry on a host country’s sectoral competitiveness, and through its methodology will provide the necessary modifications to the model for continued study of the retail internationalization process.

- / The PhD thesis is about measurement and effects of environmental policy in the context of the Porter Hypothesis (PH). The first chapter offers a critical review of the large empirical literature on the Porter Hypothesis. The second chapter presents an empirical investigation of the Porter Hypothesis focusing on the manufacturing sectors of European countries between 1997 and 2009. We look at overall innovation and productivity impact that are the most relevant indicators for the “strong” PH. This approach allows us to account for potential opportunity costs of induced innovations. As a proxy of environmental policy stringency we use pollution abatement and control expenditures (PACE), which represent one of the few indicators available at the sectoral level. We remedy upon its main drawback, that of potential endogeneity of PACE, by adopting an instrumental variable estimation approach. The third chapter represents a novel approach, inspired by the literature on multilevel latent models and Item Response Theory, to assessing countries’ environmental and energy policy performance. We use data on energy efficiency policy targeting industrial sectors in 27 EU countries between 2004 and 2009 and rank countries with respect to their ability to implement policy over time. Unlike previous contributions in this respect, our model accounts for the inherent difficulty of a given policy instrument mix. Moreover, the model is extended to deal with the longitudinal data and to adjust the country ranking as a result of economic and institutional observables, which are likely to affect policy design and implementation.