O32 - Management of Technological Innovation and R&DReturn

The hotel industry is constantly changing and evolving, and one of the key factors for success in this competition is the ability to innovate and collaborate. Innovative synergy is a process in which two or more businesses work together to create value that they would not achieve on their own. In the hotel industry, this connection can be membership in professional associations or hotel chains. The main goal of the presented article is to evaluate the cooperation of companies in the hotel industry and to identify the advantages/disadvantages and effects of synergy of companies in the context of the hotel industry. This goal will be achieved through several key elements of analysis and evaluation that will consider current trends, practices and opportunities within the field. Based on the results of our primary research, we can conclude that most members in professional associations/hotel chains have sufficient awareness of the activities of their members, which points to the development of these activities within the given professional association/hotel chain. The second finding is the fact that member businesses are aware of and benefit from the benefits that make membership in professional associations/hotel chains an important tool for supporting and strengthening the competitiveness of hotel businesses.

The application of the super-deduction of a tax as a support R&D in tax entities is primarily conditional on an assessment of whether the activity is in fact research and development. The aim of the paper is to analyse the structure of entities applying the super-calculation of research and development costs in the Slovak Republic in the period from 2015 to 2018 as well after the increase in the super-calculation rates in 2019. In the paper we mostly use quantitative statistical analysis. The rate of Slovak entities application of super-deduction in the individual years examined is low, despite a gradual increase in rates up to 150% (plus 100% year-on-year growth) in 2019. The assumption that the number of companies applying super-deduction would increase even with the increasing number of employees of the company has not been confirmed. During the period considered, companies with 10 to 50 employees applied 344 times, which was the cumulative maximum for the entire period considered. This category also prevailed in the individual monitored years. The sectoral structure of the companies is diverse, with the information technology sector predominating, followed by the engineering and electrical engineering sectors.

There are various process models for the successful implementation of product development projects. In addition to traditional project management - mostly represented by the waterfall or V model - methods of agile project management, e.g. Scrum, are increasingly in use. In the literature, the different approaches have already been described in detail. Here, an attempt is made to compare both process models by means of a simulation. This paper describes the implementation in a simulation model by using the software Matlab/Simulink®. The different approaches are modelled in a way that their effects on the project result can be statistically evaluated. A generic project was created with randomly generated parameters of the project properties. The various approaches of project management are then applied in sub-models to this project. The aim of this paper is to discuss the transfer of the characteristics of the project management approaches into the simulation and to show that the differences can be modelled accordingly.

The paper aims to form a useful tool for evaluation of sustainable innovation process in large manufacturing company. Several studies proved positive correlation between innovation and increased performance of companies and since large companies have the advantage of wide-range activities which opens new possibilities to innovate, they became driving force in innovation field. The main determinants of successful innovation are established based on literature research and used to create a questionnaire for the purpose of the examination of innovation management in selected company. Research suggests that main determinants need to be managed jointly because it is not possible to separate completely one determinant from another. The synergetic effect of all determinants complying together is proven to be a cause of successful innovation.

This study complements our long-term systemic research so as to promote technological innovation in the EU countries. The main research goal of this study is to examine technological innovation in the developing EU countries and to identify positive and negative technology innovation-related processes. In terms of the methodology of this research, as the main method was chosen Patent analysis of the WIPO database (1980-2014), which we perform in a long term. The patent data were analyzed, verified and summarized for the purposes of this study and subsequently completed by Bibliometric analysis of the technological innovation activities in these countries - for identifying relevant trends. In the analytical part of our study was in particular examined the overall development of technology patents in the developing EU countries. According to these indicators, among the most successful technology developing countries in the EU mainly belong Poland, Hungary, Romania, and the more successful are also Greece and Bulgaria. Such a long-term study in our conditions has not been realized yet.

This paper deals with the efficiency evaluation of research and development in EU (28) member states. More specifically, it provides an evaluation of human resources (researchers) and total expenditure on research and development (R&D) with respect to the achieved results (the number of publications, citable documents and patent applications to the European Patent Office). The efficiency is assessed by means of a multi-criteria method of DEA-data envelopment analysis-namely the CCR method of an input-oriented model, which enables determining the amount of inputs (expenditures on R&D and researchers) with the maximum output that should be generated in order for a country to be efficient. The aim of the paper is to identify the efficiency of scientific and research activities of the EU member states, on the basis of a quantitative approach by use of the selected R&D indicators. The results proved differences in scientific and research activities in the countries with the application of the DEA method. R&D efficiency in EU countries is evaluated with more indicators (including the H-index). In most cases, the application of another output makes no difference to the position of the countries in terms of their efficiency.

The contribution verifies, whether the competitiveness of the European Union economies tends to converge or diverge. The competitiveness of a country is defined as the ability to create innovations. Innovations represent an important resource of the qualitative competitive advantage, which is crucial for sustainable competitiveness in the long term. We observed the composite indicator development in the time period 2000-2012 with focus on the trend dissimilarities in the European Union. We used a cluster analysis and beta and sigma convergence methods to the convergence/divergence tendency verification. The results of all three methods confirmed the converging trend of competitiveness in the European Union. We found out that initially less competitive economies are catching up with initially more competitive countries and the competitiveness of individual countries as well as the EU as a whole increase at the same time.

Certain fundamentals of the nanotechnology (NT) discipline can be already found in 1870, when two professors Elihu Thomson and Edwin Houston experimented and later patented inventions on the existing arc lamps and dynamo design. The emergence of NT as a new scientific discipline can be found a hundred years later and it is also connected with the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope and the discovery of fullerenes. Among the first companies that patented NT were: General Electric, Unisys, Honeywell, DuPont, Bell Labs, and IBM. Among the first patenting areas of NT were: nano-materials, nano-manufacturing and nano-interactions. This scientific study has two particular goals. Methodological part (Chapter 1 and 2) provides a clear insight into selected topical issues of patenting, searching and categorization of NT. This part is often overlooked/simplified in many scientific papers on NT, which brings a lot of uncertainty for this discipline. The second part is the systemic analysis (Chapter 3) that is to provide a clear insight into the patented NT in the EU, based on the comprehensive statistics of the European database of EPO patents (1940-2015). But, the main scientific goal of this study is to make some conclusions for the promotion of innovation and patenting NT in the EU.

The key intention of this study is to outline primary characteristics, the application context and the forms of Technology Assessment (TA). Identifying determinants and effects of a new technology usually requires an interdisciplinary approach. The final "technology picture" should be based on a broader rational consensus of the scientific discussion, but TA can also require the participation of non-experts who can bring a more comprehensive insight into the process. This study also deals with the historical characterization of TA within technology identification processes, as a part of integrated Technology management. The research was carried out based on an intensive literature study, the extensive Bibliometrical analysis especially of the Sciencedirect and the EBSCOhost databases, and several case studies.

The concept of macroeconomic competitiveness became a phenomenon during last decades. Its controversial nature arouses attention of many people all over the world. It is impossible to find a generally accepted definition of national competitiveness as well as the way how to measure and compare competitiveness of countries. This contribution will discuss two models dealing with macroeconomic competitiveness, the original Porter's diamond model and the nine-factor model. Besides methodology, differences and similarities of these models we will be interested in how results of both the models differ. The main goal of the contribution is the identification of differences between the diamond model and the nine-factor model. For practical application of both the models we chose three countries on different development level out of Central Europe: the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

Technology analysis (TA) should help provide incentives for systematic and purposeful innovation of technological processes, technological infrastructure and an integrated technology enterprise system. TA is to some extent also a macro-discipline, because of the need of analysts for wider cooperation with environment for more comprehensive results, wider accepted technology, and improvement of efficiency of Technology management (TM). Technology radar as a possible first step of systematic TA processes is the specific instrument for enhancing technology business intelligence capabilities, especially as regards to the better use of future market opportunities. One of the most important part of TA is becoming so-called Future-oriented technology analysis that is aimed at exploring the potential of technological opportunities and risks, strengths and weaknesses of the technology, as well as raising awareness and anticipation of TM or consensus-building for corporate technology planning. This study has primarily a methodological character and deals with the partial specification of TA processes and connections, with the need to build Technology radar in a company, and with the increased use of patent TA. The methodology is based on the analysis of scientific literature, several case studies and partial Patent analysis of the European Patent Office statistics.