Volatility dynamics and the risk-return relationship in South Africa: A GARCH approach

In recent years, all economically developed countries of the world experience formation of knowledge economy as the highest stage of postindustrial economy development. International companies, basing their activity on accumulation of human capital according to the principles of innovativeness, scientific nature, continuity and progressiveness, play an important role in activation of this process. Owing to global nature of their activity it influences all spheres of human life in the world, improving it, as well as having an adverse impact (enhancement of poverty in some regions of the word, environment pollution, etc.). Achievement of these conditions of sustainable economic growth is possible just by the way of prevention of the adverse impact, which, among other things, depends on the active social position of the management of international companies. Therefore this paper is aimed at identification of priority focuses of socially responsible activity of international companies. This goal was achieved through generalization of basic program initiatives of the activity of three companies, leading in innovations (Apple, Samsung and IBM). Adoption of the above-mentioned initiatives by other companies of the world as guides while developing their own development strategy has to facilitate the growth of positive effects from enhancement of knowledge economy in the world.

The focus of the research is to develop recommendations of smart specialization (SS) for Ukrainian policymakers using European approaches. The authors revealed that the main SS projects are presented in such sectors as agri-food, industrial modernization and energy. More than 12 EU countries were the plot for conducted analysis of SS, as a result of which the level of activity of each country was determined. The creation of consortiums, including SMEs, associations, universities and other participants, disclosed the successful way of SS realization. The structure of SME’s innovative potential in Ukraine was identified underlining their main characteristic features like types of innovations and innovative activity, differentiation according to enterprise size, their regional distribution. The authors explored lack of innovations on regional and national level and significant territorial disparities, which could be eliminated through policy implementation of regional SS. The existing legislative norms for possibility of SS implementation in Ukraine were analyzed due to correspondence with the EU ones. The analysis provides the opportunity to consider them only as general framework documents without any action plans and sectoral prioritization at all. The weak points of these law documents are emphasized. As a result of research, the authors developed recommendations presented by direct action plan for Ukrainian policymakers, which include such activities as underlining key priorities (especially ICT applicability in every SS project) and their correspondence with the EU ones; eliminating regional imbalances by focusing on innovation development and reorientation of some regions according to SS priorities; respecting regional existing capacities; providing organizational mechanism for cooperation of stakeholders and financial mechanism for SS support through the EU structural funds.

This study investigates the management process of innovations commercialization and its essence. Nowadays, establishing and ensuring the efficiency of innovations commercialization process is an objective precondition that creates material values. It also creates new demand in the market, shifting the emphasis from the production of enterprises to various management fields, creates new ways of capital substitution and enhances the level of innovation activity profitability. The aim of the research is to analyze indicators and characteristics of implemented instruments of sales policy at innovation active enterprises in order to estimate the influence of sales policy parameters to innovation level. There are many factors and trends that motivate enterprises to search for new ways to ensure their competitiveness. Findings revealed that there is a need to develop new technologies that ensures the profitability growth and activities optimization through capital mobility into areas with higher productivity and profitability. Sales policy is a necessary precondition for operation performance and further development of enterprises. Sales policy parameters significantly affect the level of innovation activity of industrial enterprises. Each of sales policy tools has an individual impact on the enterprise activity dynamics and can have positive or negative effect.