INNOVATIVENESS AND INNOVATION POTENTIAL FUNCTION AT FOREST COMPANIES

The innovations have always been an important factor for the development and growth of companies' activities. They are particularly important in unstable economic environment and in times of financial and economic crises. Major role, among all types of innovations, have product innovations. Anyway, they are closely related to the other types of innovation in forest companies - technological, organizational, etc. A lot of studies demonstrate that product innovations are perceived by company management as an essential tool for business growth. The report examines the impact of different types of innovations on the overall level of innovation capacity and innovativeness of forest companies. Special and main attention is paid to the methodological aspects of innovativeness and innovation capacity function at company level. The innovations are presented as a part of the so called innovation capacity function. This function determines the forest companies' innovation capacity, and the last strongly affects the production output, described by the production function. We considered basic theoretical approach for the innovations, and applied it to evaluate the innovation index and innovation capacity for companies in forest sector. Our main statement is that in uncertain and unstable economic environment, innovations can be successfully used to ensure economic stability and production growth in forest-based sector. The analysis, however, indicated that the innovation approach for production and technological growth and companies' development is neither fully nor successfully applied in the forest-based sector, yet. There are already some innovations (product, technological, organizational) in the business sector, but they are of low added value. Generally, these innovations are at regional and national level. To ensure the development and growth of companies of Bulgarian industry, they have to develop innovations with higher added values