11th Annual Conference on Addressing Competitiveness Challenges with Innovation and Institutional Change

  The World Economy Research Institute’s 11th Annual Conference on Addressing Competitiveness Challenges with Innovation and Institutional Change. Warsaw, June 13, 2016, 9:00 AM – 6.30 PM SGH Warsaw School of Economics RATIONALE In today’s world, sustainable competitiveness is no longer built on such staple elements as economies of scale, but rather on curve-jumping and curve-defining innovations. Therefore, the recognition of the entire process of innovation (from investment to commercialization and implementation) by policy makers is of key importance. That is because, without an appropriate institutional environment, innovations will not emerge and sustainable competitiveness will not be achieved. It is through an appropriate set of institutional changes that economies will be able to capitalize on their available resources as inputs in the creation of innovation outputs leading to a strong, long-term competitive advantage. Therefore, the following question arises: What kinds of institutional changes are needed, alongside innovation, to help build a competitive advantage in today’s world? This year’s Conference will seek to answer this question. AIMS OF THE CONFERENCE: • to share research results on institutional change and its role in shaping competitiveness • to discuss the role of innovation as a building block of competitive advantage and as a path to faster economic growth; • to share theoretical, empirical and policy research results on various innovation and competitiveness issues; • to discuss the implications of research findings for policy design and formulate recommendations for Polish and EU innovation policies. KEYNOTE SPEAKER Dr Örjan Sölvell is Professor of International Business at the Stockholm School of Economics, SSE, established in 1909 and ranked as the leading Business School in the Nordic region. Sölvell has been active as a student, teacher and researcher at the school for four decades, and has been Director for the Institute of International Business, Dean SSE MBA, Associate Dean SSE PhD and Prorector of SSE. Since 2005 he is leading a research center at SSE: the Center for Strategy and Competitiveness. The center is in charge of the Cluster Observatory in Europe. Sölvell’s academic background includes studies at the Stockholm School of Economics (BSc -79; PhD -87), George Washington University (IB -81) and the Harvard Business School (VIS -82). Since the mid-1980s Dr Sölvell has worked closely with Professor Michael Porter at HBS, studying competitiveness and clusters in various nations and regions. Since 2001 Dr Sölvell is Senior Associate at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, ISC, at HBS. In 2001/2002 Dr Sölvell acted as Visiting Professor at HBS and created a new course together with Professor Porter and Dr Ketels “Microeconomics of Competitiveness: Firms, Clusters and Economic Development” (MOC), now taught at HBS and some 80 universities around the world. Sölvell has published in the areas of strategy, competition, competitiveness and clusters. The concept of clusters and the diamond model was introduced in Sweden through the book “Advantage Sweden” in 1991 (co-authored with Michael Porter and Ivo Zander). Together with Christian Ketels and Göran Lindqvist he published the widely acclaimed “Cluster Initiative Greenbook” in 2003, and the “Greenbook 2.0” in 2013. In 2015 he published “On Strategy and Competitiveness”. He is involved in policy work in Sweden and elsewhere, particularly in the areas of innovation, regional and cluster policy. He also serves on the advisory board of The Competitiveness Institute (TCI), and acts as Chairman for the non-profit organization Clusters Sweden. KEYNOTE SPEECH on: Competitiveness & Innovation of Nations, Clusters and Firms – Conceptual Models Örjan Sölvell Abstract The presentation, after a short introduction of the vision promoted by the Center for Strategy and Competitiveness, will discuss the topic of competitiveness. The talk will take a look at the funnel approach to competitiveness in strategy development (i.e., region-cluster-firm). Next, the difference between competitiveness (“a race to the bottom”) and innovation (“race to the top”) will be discussed. The topic of competitiveness and innovation (as presented, e.g., by M. Porter and W. Abernathy) will be then continued on the example of the automotive industry, which will lead to the presentation of a new perspective on competitiveness (the changing importance of micro factors in favor of macro ones). Nine countries will be represented at the conference: Poland, Romania, China, Germany, Serbia, Hungry, Ukraine, UK, USA. Learn more: www.sgh.waw.pl/weri-conference