In modern growth or development
theory innovation is a crucial
factor which pushes the dynamics of an economy and determines its
success in
the future. Out of innovations, created in the presence, the potentials
for the
future of a country are prepared, deciding how its economic fitness and
competitiveness will emerge. So, future-orientation is in a natural way
connected
with innovativeness of a firm, a region or a country and shapes the
strength
and the specifics of the process of development.
Our study is focusing on the
group of G-19 countries with respect to their future-orientation shaped
and characterized
by innovation and the underlying processes of creating and distributing
novelties. This group is an economic, financial and political forum
which
consists of 19 major economies, advanced and developing ones, allocated
in
Asia, Europe, Euro-Asia, North and South America, The Middle East and
Oceania.
If you add the European Union you get the G-20 group which is the main
economic
council of wealthy nations nowadays.
The concept of future-orientation, defined
by innovativeness, gets its analytical and empirical relevance when it
is placed
and investigated within a specific development model. Such a model
determines
the theoretical basis of the study and provides the necessary
ingredients for
an empirical application.
In our study we will use “Comprehensive Neo-Schumpeterian
Economics” (CNSE) as an analytical framework (Hanusch and
Pyka, 2007a). This
approach is based (a) on the principle of innovation as the main
driving force
and the engine of development coupled b) with the notion of
future-orientation
penetrating all spheres of socio-economic life in developed as well as
in
developing countries.
Based on the concept of CNSE the central aim of our study
is to gain new insights and findings concerning the variety of
future-orientation of the G-19 countries. For that purpose we use an
empirical indicator
approach which (a) tries to bring the notion of future-orientation on a
concrete basis by using indicators embedded in the framework of CNSE;
(b) investigates
patterns of similarities in the set of indicators; (c) shows how these
patterns
look like by applying cluster analysis; (d) draws some conclusions from
the
patterns concerning the status and variety of future-orientation in the
group
of G-19 countries.
JEL: B52, C8, O57