Macro and Micro Innovativeness of the Western Balkan Countries

Innovativeness has been identified as a key success factor in todays’ increasingly competitive and complex environment. It is considered to have a key role as a driver of economic growth and essential instrument for business performance improvement of enterprises especially for emerging economies and economies in transition. Innovation readiness offers a possibility of new growth platforms both on macro level when talking about the economic growth as the biggest national issue and micro level when talking about competitiveness and business performances of enterprises. Engaging innovation potential in a way that will keep up with the pace of technological change and changing demands is indispensable in order to increase competitiveness on both levels. The Western Balkan countries are representative examples of economies in transition as they have witnessed significant changes and economic transformations since the beginning of the twenty-first century, and now they are challenged to keep the growth and improve it. Innovativeness has an influential role in responding to this challenge. The objective of this paper is to analyze cross-country differences and portray the situation in the region giving the answer to the following questions: how are Western Balkan countries ranked on world economies’ innovation capabilities scoreboards, how is their ranking changing over time, and how do they differ between themselves? In order to answer these questions, comparative cross-country analysis of innovativeness in Western Balkan countries was conducted. The findings build upon the comprehensive and comparable statistical date from public databases including studies on global innovativeness.