Abstract:

One of the defining characteristics of company’s competitive advantages in the modern organization is willingness of its staff for innovation activities. At the same time, innovative activity can be identified as a type of labor associated with the transformation of ideas into a new or improved product introduced in the market, or a new or improved technological process used in practical activities, or a new approach to social services. In modern labor economics and management, several types of readiness of an individual (employee) to innovations are considered: managerial, competence-related, personal, communicative, and environmental.

A wide variety of approaches to the definition of readiness for innovation, on the one hand, and the limitations of statistical data on this subject, on the other, determine the need for a study of readiness for innovation on the basis of independently collected statistical information.

The purpose of the study was to determine the readiness for innovation activities of employees and managers of modern companies. Studying the experience of Russian and foreign scientists has shown that those companies that pay serious attention to the introduction of innovations and form an innovative climate are more competitive and effective. However, the lack of universal methodological approaches to identifying the readiness of employees and managers of companies for innovative activities indicates the need for special research. In this regard, such research methods were used as questionnaires, graphical interpretation of data, analysis. The survey questionnaire covered 250 people from various companies in the Moscow region, heads of different levels of management and specialists (52% men and 48% women). The organizations participated in the research were from different economic sectors: food, oil, construction, trade organizations and other business representatives of various types of activities (production, services, including trade, logistics, public catering). When processing large arrays of representative information obtained as a result of a survey of respondents, economic and mathematical methods of statistical data processing and the SPSS program were used.

The objectives of the study included identifying the main reasons that prevent the implementation of innovations into the activities of a modern organization, the rationale for next steps to change the situation. The results of the study were taken as the basis for the development of basic directions and recommendations for overcoming innovation inertia, manifestations of passivity and leveling obstacles in the process of using innovations. However, the problem of their practical implementation in modern companies is still not solved, which indicates the need to continue research in this area, including an in-depth study of the advanced experience of Russian and foreign scientists, as well as practitioners focused on the trajectory of innovative development.

Keywords:

Innovations, innovative activities, the willingness of companies to innovate.