Καινοτόμες πρακτικές σε πολυεθνικές επιχειρήσεις

Καρουζάκη, Μαρία - Ζωή Ι.

Innovative practices in multinational enterprises

Master Thesis

Author

Καρουζάκη, Μαρία - Ζωή Ι.

Date

2014-11-18

Abstract

The primary purpose of this thesis is to examine the innovative practices of multinational enterprises. Specifically, to describe the concept of innovation in general through the literature review and how it influences the multinational enterprises. Also, an effort is being made to demonstrate, how the multinational enterprises contribute to innovation and competitiveness. The thesis is divided into five sections. The first section includes an overview of the concepts of innovation and multinational enterprise. In the second, there is a clarification of the terms that are relevant to the innovation and also a description of its kinds, rules and sources. Additionally, an analysis is made to find the ways that innovation is diffused and adopted within an enterprise, how during economic crisis, Greek firms can innovate and how this is helpful for their competitiveness. The third chapter contains a review of the term of multinational enterprise and its characteristics as well as the subjects of strategic and organizational structure, in order to maximize its profits in relevance to the local businesses. Moreover, there is an analysis of the international marketing procedures that multinational companies can follow and a comparison of them with SMEs on how they innovate. Finally, the role of multinational enterprises in Greece is described and their effects in the country. The fourth chapter deals with the conduction of an empirical research (field research) in order to examine the way in which innovative multinational enterprises operate in Greece. The research was made through a semi-structured questionnaire with open and closed-ended questions given to a sample of multinational enterprises in the country. The results obtained from this research are presented with relevant charts. The last chapter presents the main findings which were drawn by this paper. The findings show that multinational companies utilize their financial and material resources to innovate, in-house, (they have their own research and development department) and they consider suppliers with whom they have the power to negotiate, a very important source of information. Multinational companies want to cover to the maximum the progressive and growing needs of customers and so they try to implement innovations in their products, process or organization and many times they succeed it, because of the appropriately qualified staff and the many different resources that they feature.