Inward Foreign Direct Investment and National Innovative Capacity

A remarkable increase in the attention devoted to national innovative capacity (NIC) has been noticed over the last decades. There is a strong debate whether a country’s national innovative capacity is entirely determined by local effects or it is also influenced by global network position and international economic activities. Furthermore, despite its’ importance, there is a lack of studies which take the variables of non-technological innovation into account. This paper aims to fill the empirical research gap by focusing on inward foreign direct investment as an input of NIC and engaging non–technological innovation as an output in NIC models. An investigation of 28 European Union (EU) Member States in the period of 2013-2016 shows that EU has a great intellectual capacity of human capital which drives both technological and non-technological innovation. The regression analysis revealed that the international transmission of knowledge through inward FDI and import boost the employment in knowledge-intensive sectors and has a positive effect on trademark and design applications. The findings thus help to better understand the role of international economic activities in enhancing national innovative capacity and facilitate EU efforts to catch up with the strongest innovators in the World.