Sophia Khalimova (p)

When talking about the innovative development the most attention is focused on quantitative indicators describing innovations (for example, the share of expenditures on research and development in GDP). Official statistics measures current economic activity but does not take into account the determinants of well-being such as the quality of social relations, environmental destruction, etc. According to G. Stiglitz it is necessary to shift the focus of the measurement system from measuring economic production to measuring human well-being.
Usually innovative development and social well-being are analyzed independently from each other, or they are connected to the general welfare level. In the analysis of innovative development technological innovations are viewed through the solution of actual problems: climate change, the shortage of energy resources, and issues related to the health sector. However, there is almost no innovative development analysis showing its impact on the social well-being.
The goal of this paper is to evaluate influence of the level of regional innovation development on the social well-being of the region. First of all, we assess the level of regional innovation development taking into account social climate of the region. Then, we measure the level of social well-being of the region and identify factors of innovative development which have influence on the social development of the region.
The object of research are the Russian regions, which are analyzed in 2000-2016. The paper uses rating assessments method and regression analysis, we develop an econometric model of the impact of the elements of regional innovation system on the social sphere.
At the preliminary stage of the analysis we use correlation analysis to answer the question whether the level of regional innovative development is related to the social well-being of the region. We calculate the pair correlation coefficients between the indicators of social well-being and the innovation development indicators.
The results of preliminary calculations show a positive relation between the level of innovative development and social well-being of the region in its various aspects. Innovative development requires a certain level of prosperity, and innovations, in their turn, make the environment more comfortable.

Satu Rinkinen (p)

Lahti is a town of approximately 120 000 inhabitants, located in Southern Finland. Well-being sector has been one of the main targets of strategic development activities in Lahti. Pekkarinen and Harmaakorpi (2006) have studied the age and well-being business network in Lahti and its cross-sectoral innovation potential with data gathered in 2002. Already then well-being sector was seen to include significant innovation and business potential. During the past 15 years the multifold societal effects of population ageing and decreasing public resources have become increasingly concrete also in Lahti region. One of the main challenges has been organizing the elderly care services and making them more effective. In finding solutions to this challenge, both technology innovations as well as service innovations have and will increasingly have an essential role.

In Lahti region well-being has been identified and defined as a core process in the regional innovation system. However, coordinated cooperation within the regional well-being cluster has decreased. This study focuses on the changes of the network dynamics within the studied regional innovation network and its relation to the views of the innovation potential of age and well-being sector in the region. Has the cooperation within this sector decreased in general or is the cooperation more centered around bilateral cooperation or more fixed and less coordinated networks? How does the evolution of the network structure and forms of cooperation change the need for policy support and public development activities targeted to sector that is seen as strategically important sector for regional economy. Answers to these questions were sought with the help of survey and interviews of key informants in Lahti region. Together with the results from the study conducted in the beginning of the millennium, our results present the evolution of regional cooperation network and the network actors’ views of the cooperation and the innovation potential of the regional age and well-being business sector. Our study contributes to the research on regional innovation networks and to the innovation potential identification and development of the well-being sector in regional context.

Isidoro Romero (p), Igone Porto Gómez, Jon Mikel Zabala-Iturriagagoitia

Innovation has for long been identified as a source of competitive advantage (Schumpeter, 1942). Firms use their productive, scientific, technological, market and even sociocultural relationships with other agents in their pursuit of innovation. By means of cooperation, SMEs can gain access to external resources that might be unavailable otherwise. However, collaboration activities also imply risks and uncertainties.
Coopetition happens when competitors collaborate to obtain advantages (Geraudel and Salvetat, 2014; Gnyawali and Park, 2011). Increasingly, firms establish relationships with competitors to create and diffuse knowledge, explore market opportunities and gain access to external resources, while still competing in certain (e.g. technological, niche) areas (Ritala, 2012). Coopetition has also been pointed out as a way to confront the crises and gain competitiveness in the long-term (Katsanakis et al., 2011) since it allows firms to identify new diversification paths. Other rationales identified in the literature to develop coopetitive relationships include: to increase the business share (Brandenburger and Nalebuff, 1996), to create new markets through innovations (Quintana-García and Benavides-Velasco, 2004), to improve the efficiency of the usage of resources in current markets (Ritala, 2012), or to protect the share of current markets while trying to diversify and get into new ones (Gnyawali, et al., 2008). Coopetitive performance has been approached in sectors such as high technology (Zakrzewska-Bielawska, 2014), food supply (Walley and Custance, 2010) or steel (Cygler et al., 2014). This paper explores it in the case of the tourism sector.
The objective of this paper is to investigate whether coopetition influences the innovation activities undertaken by SMEs involved in the tourism sector in Spain, and to test whether this influence varies across innovation typologies and localizations (e.g. coastal or inland destinations). The paper is embodied in the project entitled ‘Tourism SMEs, Global Value Chains and Innovation’, which is a large study on SMEs in the tourism industry of Spain financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Spain). The empirical analysis is based on a survey of SMEs in Spain – hotels, tourism intermediaries and restaurants – carried out on January 2016.

Berna Sezen Özen (p), Tüzin Baycan, Alpay Filiztekin

Regional Innovation Systems (RIS) is a complex web of relations, not only of national, but also of international agencies and innovation systems. Within these systems regions may not only have different levels of innovative capacity but also evolve in different ways depending on various factors, particularly changes in national policies or their position in the system. We start with a static analysis of variation in innovative performance of regions based on a set of indicators, namely registered patents, utility models, trademarks and industrial designs, gathered from the Turkish Patent Institute. Our primary goal is to provide a dynamic analysis of transition from one state of innovative capacity to another by using successive Markov chains. For determination of the states/important periods, it is important to analyse the historical background of Turkey on innovation. The increase in the number of regulations and institutions since 2000s show that Turkey has initiatives in innovation and has entered into a restructuring process both legally and institutionally. Therefore the dynamic analysis of transition is examined for the last decades of these indicators for 81 regions/provinces of Turkey at NUTS3 level. The states are determined as 2000-2005, 2006-2010 and 2011-2016.
Preliminary results of our analysis show that metropolitan regions have higher performance in innovation. Although the innovation leaders are generally the same metropolitan regions, there may be changes in their position in the system due to the variables. Innovation leaders which are common for all indicators and states are İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Bursa and Kocaeli regions/provinces. There is a certain fact for every variable in the study that İstanbul takes the lead in the innovation performance. On the other side, there is not a common modest innovator region for all indicators and states. But there are some regions which are generally located in the modest innovators group such as Tunceli, Ardahan, Bitlis, Bayburt, Siirt and Bingöl. The similar features of these regions are not only having low innovation performances but also being identified as priority regions for development in national development plans. In conclusion this study illustrates the innovation performances of Turkish regions/provinces both considering by their position in the system and also their position with each other.