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Innovation arises from multilevel interactions. Many factors at various levels of aggregation chip in. Not only individual characteristics, resources and capabilities of firms, but also framework conditions within which they operate matter for their success in the innovation process. Admittedly this has been recognized for a long time in the various ?contextual? perspectives on geography of innovation, including the concepts of innovative (or creative) milieu, technology districts, learning regions, collective learning or localized learning, which have largely converged into the study of regional innovation systems over the recent years. However, quantitative empirical research in this tradition remains scarce and continues to use models that are severely restricted to handle multilevel hypotheses like these. The aim of this paper is to develop the multilevel approach to spatial analysis of innovation. Using a highly representative micro dataset of small and medium size firms derived from pooling multiple waves of Community Innovation Survey in the Czech Republic, we quantitatively assess the hypothesis that the regional milieu directly affects firm?s innovativeness in terms of the intensity on innovative sales and that the framework effects differ for different kinds of firms. The main contribution of this paper is four-fold. First and foremost, we investigate the potential endogeneity of the predictors vis-a-vis the regional random effects, i.e. the unobserved heterogeneity across regions. Second, we noticeably extended the set of regional indicators that feed into the factor analysis of regional framework conditions, including data on scientific articles, patents, university research, public research institutes, etc. Three, we delve more deeply into the issue of what are the most relevant regional units of the analysis. Finally, the empirical analysis is based on an extensive micro dataset, which provides far more representative evidence at a detailed regional level, as compared to previous studies on this topic. Since these surveys use random sampling, the overlap of respondents is fairly limited, which hinders the creation of longitudinal data, but on the other hand if merged together they provide a highly representative regional sample. The results indicate that the quality of regional innovation milieu is a highly significant predictor of the innovativeness of firms and that the regional differences mediate effects of the firm-level predictors, namely size, foreign ownership and internal innovative efforts of the firms.

Title: Implications of the institutional theories of regional development for the emergence of the regional innovation systems in the CzechRepublic Author: Pavla Žižalová Summary The accelerated intensity of the economic globalization and its implications for all segments of the society during the last couple of days have changed profoundly the workings of contemporary capitalism. Increased pressure is put on national and regional economies to continuously upgrade their competitive advantages and at the same time new learning opportunities occur at a faster rate than ever. As a result, in recent years, almost all have come to a consensus that today's advanced economies are "knowledge-based" economies -economies directly based on the production, distribution and use of knowledge where learning and innovation creation is the most fundamental process for competitiveness not only for firms and organizations, but also for nations and regions. Parallel to the globalization process there are, however, strong forces of localization. To some extent paradoxically, empirical studies have revealed that knowledge intensive industries - the most potentially footloose of all activities - tend to agglomerate in space, often in proximity to universities and research institutes. Indeed, the most knowledge- intensive of these...

Startups is the phenomenon that has been entering into the public awareness. However the increasing popularity of startups is not reflected by academics, whose interest in this topic is still limited. Universally valid definition of startup is missing. There is small number of research projects studying development and growth of startups. We know a little about the individuals that stay behind these entrepreneurial acts. Startups can in fact contribute to economic development of regions considerably. This applies doubly for the startups operating in knowledge-intensive economic sectors as information technology (IT), which is characterized by the highest performance in terms of founding rates of startups. Setting of systematic and effective regional policy instruments for startups support is, however, dependent on their detailed understanding. The ambition of diploma thesis is contribute to this understanding and at least assist in the creation of regional-development policy of startups support. The aim of this work is to find and describe behavior patterns of Czech IT and internet startups during their growth from the perspective of developmental process, financing and spatial organization. Development of startups within the discussed fields of research is examined through four stages of development....

Unemployment is a matter affecting the life and position in society each of us. The unemployment rate is a widely used indicator of the maturity economies of states and their regions. In connection with the lingering economic crisis, the unemployment problem has become a widely discussed issue, in particular the differences in unemployment rates across regions of countries. This diploma thesis focuses on the topic of regional unemployment in the Czech Republic during the economic crisis of 2008 - 2011, and aims to gain insight into the evolution of the unemployment rate in the most affected region of the Czech Republic in these times of crisis.

This master thesis is focused on issues of technology transfer and cooperation between universities and application area. The aim is to disclose the barriers and factors that affect technology transfer and to identify the spatial pattern of cooperation. Theory of regional systems, concepts of triple helix, differentiated knowledge bases and models of learning are verified by a case study of Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague. For the verification were used guided interviews with selected leaders of research teams at Faculty of Science. This thesis points out that the local specifics shape the character of cooperation. On the other hand comparison with research institutions in South Moravia shows that barriers affecting technology transfer are national. The comparison also shows that the existence of supporting institutions can positively affect the transfer of knowledge between academic and industry sphere. Key words: technology transfer, cooperation, personal contacts

Czechia seeks to respond to the challenges coming with the development of knowledge-based economy. It builds up innovation infrastructure with the aim of filling the gap between research institutions and application sector, especially private firms. Tools lowering the barriers for the diffusion of technological progress include science and technology parks (STP). STP operate as a platform interconnecting actors involved in the innovation process, they initiate a knowledge transfer and provide specialized business services, all aimed at developing innovative entrepreneurship and research commercialization. Flood of new STP in Czechia draws attention to their particular characteristics and their efficiency. An extensive survey analyzes the role of Czech STP in innovative entrepreneurship development. The evaluation consists of two levels. The first describes the strategic profile of each of the parks and search for common characteristics. The other observes innovation activity of tenant firm separately for the period before and after joining the STP. In addition, the thesis discusses socio-economic context from which innovation infrastructure originates, and factors influencing its efficiency. Author distinguishes 4 specific types in the sample of 22 STP. Evidence of 78 tenant firms suggests a positive effect...

Foreign companies were the main drivers of economic development in the Czech Republic in last two decades. Today the Czech market is already saturated with large number of foreign investment and future development of the Czech economy depends on a shift towards a knowledge-based economic development. Thesis attempts to evaluate different position of domestic and foreign companies from the Pardubice Region in global production networks. This position will have different influence on focus of companies on research, development and knowledge-based activities. The work is based on 34 directed interviews with the directors of domestic and foreign companies from the Pardubice Region. First aim is to indicate different position of domestic and foreign firms in global production networks. Second aim is to find a different meaning of research and development activities for companies. Development activities are the main article of shift towards the production of knowledge-intensive products with higher added value. Last aim of thesis is to evaluate different intensity of collaboration of domestic and foreign companies on the research and development activities with other firms and institutions.

The role of universities in regional development has changed over the last two decades. Current discussion in literature confronts universities with challenges related to an emergence of a third role, that should universities perform in regional innovation systems. It concerns regionally-oriented activities, through which universities are becoming the leaders of regional economic and social development. This concept is applied to a comparative case study of two different Czech regions, South Bohemia Region and Moravian - Silesian Region. The objective is to verify, if different regional circumstances leads to a different form and intensity of networking between academic and private sector, or whether the main factor influencing the role of the two Czech universities is a specific national context. Key words: universities, partnership with private sector, regional innovation systems, third role