DOES OWNERSHIP TYPE MATTER FOR INNOVATIVENESS AND LEARNING ORIENTATION? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM SERBIA

The turbulent business environement acknowledges innovativeness and learning as dominant success factors of modern business organizations. The differences in their innovativeness can be explained by the ownership structure, as an internal mechanism of corporate governance, with significant attention being paid to the ownership type. The paper seeks to identify potential differences in innovativeness and learning orientation among companies from the aspect of domestic and foreign ownership. The research sample consists of 71 companies operating in the territory of the Republic of Serbia. Primary data were collected by the survey method. An appropriate quantitative methodology was implemented in this empirical research. and analyzed with non – parametric Mann – Whitney U test. The results obtained revealed statistically significant differences in the level of innovation and learning orientation between domestically and foreign – owned companies. The originality of the research is reflected in the analysis of individual innovation dimensions, from the ownership type aspect, including product or service innovations, process and organizational innovations. By studying the link between learning orientation and type of ownership, the paper fills the identified research gap in the existing literature.