To read this content please select one of the options below:

EU member states’ ability to attract intellectual capital in times of crisis

Anita Pelle (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary)
Marcell Zoltán Végh (Doctoral School in Economics, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary)

Competitiveness Review

ISSN: 1059-5422

Article publication date: 20 July 2015

247

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to assess how the recent financial and economic crisis has affected European Union (EU) member states’ ability to attract intellectual capital. The issue was found to be relevant, as one of the key elements of competitiveness today is the ability to attract intellectual capital and the question how the recent financial and economic crisis has changed this ability of EU member states can be asked. The question is relevant in relation to the diversity of effects that the crisis had on EU member states, including, the different levels of real economy adjustment constraints.

Design/methodology/approach

The concept of competitiveness applied by the World Economic Forum (WEF) in constructing the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) was used. Based on selected WEF GCI sub-indicators and the WEF’s methodology, we a new index named “Ability to attract intellectual capital” was generated. EU member states’ performance was compared along this indicator for the 2007-2008 (pre-crisis) and the 2013-2014 (post-crisis) periods. In this way, EU member states can be ranked before and after the crisis; their performance can be compared in the two periods, relatively to each other, and in relation to their performance along other relevant indices.

Findings

The findings show interesting results. First, many peripheral EU member states, deeply affected by the crisis, could considerably improve their relative positions between 2007 and 2013. Second, the Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries show a rather mixed picture, drawing up rather different individual development paths. Third, the advancements in some countries do not imply that overall convergence is proceeding in the EU. Nevertheless, some countries have not wasted the “good” crisis to take those steps of structural reform.

Research limitations/implications

Because we only look at two time periods (pre-and post-crisis), the authors are not able to describe the processes that were going on in the EU member states during the years of the crisis; the results can only show the difference between the two periods. Furthermore, there may be other methodological approaches to countries’ abilities to attract intellectual capital that may bring results different from this study’s results. For the countries who, according to our investigations, could improve these abilities, enhanced competitiveness is likely to occur in a few years’ time.

Practical implications

For those countries aiming at improving their abilities to attract intellectual capital, or for EU policy design, this research may provide useful results. Moreover, not only this study’s results but also the methodology can be used by others, for other purposes: to compare different years, different sets of countries included in the WEF GCI or even along different dimensions.

Social implications

This study’s research findings, the authors believe, will help EU member states and the EU as a whole in getting to know their abilities to attract intellectual capital better. In the introductory part of this paper, the aim was also to collect arguments from the economic theory to explain why such abilities are crucial for future competitiveness of countries.

Originality/value

The methodology that was used is the adoption of WEF methodology, and the data are from the WEF GCI dataset. However, to the authors’s knowledge, no other research work has applied this methodology on this set of WEF GCI sub-indicators, with such purposes as to compare EU member states’ abilities to attract intellectual capital before and after the crisis.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

A first version of this paper was presented at the 1st AIB CEE Chapter conference in Budapest, on 9-11 October 2014. The authors are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers of the conference paper for their valuable insights and to the participants at the conference who, with their questions and comments, considerably helped the authors in clarifying their findings further and in drafting the final version. The paper is based on the authors’ research carried out in the framework of the project “Sectoral preparation for the training and R & D tasks related to the national ELI project” (project ID: TÁMOP-4.1.1.C-12/1/KONV-2012-0005). The project was supported by the European Union and co-financed by the European Social Fund.

Citation

Pelle, A. and Végh, M.Z. (2015), "EU member states’ ability to attract intellectual capital in times of crisis", Competitiveness Review, Vol. 25 No. 4, pp. 410-425. https://doi.org/10.1108/CR-03-2015-0013

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Related articles