Almost two out of three large companies are innovative, less than a half mid-sized and less than a third of small companies
A total of a third of Croatian companies innovate, while two thirds do not, the National Bureau of Statistics poll showed. In the period from 2012 to 2014, 35.2% of 4,498 polled companies implemented at least one innovation, Poslovni Dnevnik reported on June 26, 2016. Almost two out of three large companies are innovative, less than a half mid-sized and less than a third of small companies.
Innovation activity is more common in large companies: 41% innovate, while under a third of service enterprises used innovation. There are less product and process innovators than ones in organisation and marketing. Plant procurement, equipment, software and buildings are the most common form of innovative activity with the majority of products and process innovators (83.9%).
Production companies are more prone to undertaking research and development activity as well as design activity, while service companies tend to procure different knowledge formats on the market, such as know-how, copyrighted works, patented and non-patented inventions and other knowledge formats. The structure of expenditures for innovation activities in 2014 shows most has been spent in acquisition of plants, equipment, software and buildings, followed by own activity in research and development.
Non-innovative companies can be divided, according to the reason for not implementing innovation, to ones which had no plausible reason for not innovating and ones that intended to, but obstacles were too many. Companies that did not have the motivation to innovate cited weak demand for innovation on the market, while on the other hand the greatest obstacle in implementing innovation in companies are difficulties in obtaining state support or innovation subsidies.
