Regional Formation and Development Studies

Innovations in social pedagogical assistance in schools are important for ensuring equal opportunities in education for all social

Innovations and innovative activities are becoming themost important feature of a country or region development. For this reason agreat amount of literature highlights this topic. There are a lot of documents,strategies and programs signed which try to enhance business competitivenessand productivity. Formation of regional policy should make that thisdevelopment will ensure a high quality of life throughout the country. Economicgrowth of countries in encouraging to look for more efficienty, which isdirectly related with innovative entities. The significance of innovations isthe focus of EU regional policy. Although the innovation phenomenon is widelyanalyzed, consistent and specified concept is not formulated. Thus, this paperwill primarily discuss the diversity of innovation concept and interface withthe regional concept. Another part of the work aims to reveal the determinantsof the regional development influencing innovation activities by differentauthor’s approaches. The final section of this paper is to present adoptedmethodological matrix for innovativeness evaluation for regions in Lithuania.In Lithuaniainnovativeness is counted just on a country’s level, no territorial importanceis emphasised. Even though innovations are closely related with regionalpolicy. So the main purpose of this paper is to make methodological basis formore detailed (in a territorial contex) analysis of innovativeness in Lithuania’sregions.

Innovation and entrepreneurship in regions is one of essential tools, in added value creation in economics and in development in national level. It is very important to encourage creativity, new ways of thinking and continuous process of learning of individuals. There are some different approaches how to measure competitiveness of state economy and competitiveness in regional level. Global Competitiveness Index shows competitiveness of state among other world economies based on the 12 pillars of competitiveness, which is difficult to apply in regional or entrepreneurial level due to lack of data at regional level. Innovation is a key factor for development and competitiveness in individual (individual, enterprise) and institutional (local governmental institutions, regional, national and global level. Scientific problem of article is that impact of creativity, knowledge creation and dissemination and cooperation could not be measured trough quantitative data. Aim of the article is to define support model for cooperation of individual – institutional level in innovative entrepreneurship and its impact on regional development. Methods ar analysis of scientific literature, and political planning documents for define of support model in dynamic external environment.

The article aims to show that the main and most important prerequisite for successful hotel business growth in current promptly changing business environment becomes development of innovation in the hotel industry. Though the term innovation is already widely defined by many researchers, it is considered in the article as a subject for future discussions leading to proposed scientific classification of innovations based on selected criterions. Evaluation of the process of innovation appearance in the hotel market allowed creation of the model, presenting the main influences and attributes of the whole innovation process in a hotel industry. Afterwards, the article discusses some specific innovation tools that are essential for hotel enterprises and which could be challenging for hoteliers in Ukrainian market nowadays. Based on the empirical research results, the obstacles which hinder up-to-date innovative operations in Ukrainian Radisson chain hospitality market are discussed. As well, concerning prospective innovation trends for Radisson Hotels in Ukraine, advices for future innovation implementation were proposed.

Social entrepreneurship is an important component of the European social market economy that is based on the principles of solidarity and responsibility and the priorities regarding the individual and social goals; it promotes social responsibility and social inclusion. However, in practice, social enterprises face various problems that negatively affect their competitiveness. The present research has set an aim to examine the competitiveness of social entrepreneurship in Latvia. To achieve the aim, a case study was carried out to identify the factors affecting the competitiveness of social entrepreneurship and its competitive advantages and disadvantages in comparison with conventional enterprises. The research found that the key competitive advantages of social entrepreneurship were the story told by social enterprises and their employee motivation, while the negative effects regarding competitiveness were as follows: the lack of government support for social entrepreneurship, insufficient information in society about social entrepreneurship and the social value created by it, as well as various other factors in the internal environment of an enterprise.