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Despite many advantages of e-commerce for both firms and buyers, it is still not equally adopted by customers in all European Union countries. According to Digital Scoreboard in countries such as United Kingdom and Denmark, nearly 90% of Internet users shop online. On the other hand, in Romania and Bulgaria, not even one-third of the Internet users buy goods and services online. Diffusion of e-shopping clearly has different pace across EU. In this article, we focus on individuals who refuse to purchase over Internet and aim to explore reasons for their behavior. To do so, we rely on Community Statistics on Information Society (CSIS) microdata for the year 2015. Individuals who report ordering and buying over the Internet more than one year ago and those who never engaged in online shopping were asked about reasons for not buying online. Potential reasons include lack of skills, privacy and security concerns, delivery concerns and problems, not having payment cards as well as habit, loyalty and preference of shopping in stores. The focus of this article is on comparison of reasons for not shopping online of individuals in EU countries that lead in adoption of e-shopping with laggard countries. We first analyze the prevalence of reasons for not buying online and compare countries in that respect. Among individuals who did not adopt e-shopping, there are those who have tried it at one point in time and did not continue to use it frequently and those who actually never engaged in buying over Internet. Both have certain reasons and constrains that prevent them from adopting this form of shopping. The analysis is followed by identification of reasons that significantly affect probability of trying online shopping, if not adopting it fully. It can be assumed that gaining true experience might contribute to increase in adoption of e-shopping among individuals. This is even more important for countries that still lag behind not just in buying online but in overall digital performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The slow progress of innovation in transition economies is not related just to firms' decision to invest in innovation activities. Rather, it is worth distinguishing between their decision to increase investment, reduce it, keep their investments at the same level or not invest in innovation activities at all. To understand these decisions we develop and estimate models for post-transition and developed European countries employing multinomial probit. The analysis relies on responses of 2580 firms from 11 post-transition countries and 4058 firms from 18 European countries collected by the Flash Eurobarometer 433 - Innobarometer 2016 survey. We have established that the firms' decision making process in general is mostly related to previous innovation investment experience. In transition countries, the higher the percent of turnover invested in innovation, the lower the probability of an increase in the future. In the firms operating in developed economies, lower turnover from new products is related to the decision to decrease innovation investment in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to identify innovation barriers that limit innovation performance of small and medium enterprises (SME) in Croatia. Data are obtained using an online survey. The sample consists of 94 SMEs that have experience in innovation activities. The impact of constraints to innovation is measured on five-point scale. Employing the factor analysis, we reduced number of variables to four factors. Cluster analysis is used to group SMEs according to factors that constrain their innovation activities. SMEs are grouped into three clusters. Results reveal that firms are mostly constrained by external factors. In two out of three clusters, firms report high intensity of financial constraints to their innovation activity. The findings reveal that the least pronounced constraints to innovation in SMEs in Croatia are organisational constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Post-transition countries struggle in their attempt to catch-up the more advanced market economies with more or less success. Simultaneously, the business performance of the countries whose innovation indicators lag behind the desired levels seems relatively poor. Often emphasized problems in post-transition countries regard the relations of fi rms with government institutions. We analyze perceptions of innovative and non-innovative fi rms in dealing with government officials, aiming to explore if these two groups of fi rms share similar experiences with tax administration, business licensing and courts officials. The analysis is focused on 17 European post-transition countries that are either EU members or accession countries. The results reveal that corrected for selection mechanism, innovative fi rms do not perceive courts as an obstacle to their business activities more than non-innovative fi rms, although they seem to participate more in court-related procedures. Furthermore, innovative fi rms in these countries are more likely to perceive licensing and tax administration as obstacles to their business. Thus, specific policy measures aimed at creating positive business environment should be designed in order to enhance innovation activities and support long-term growth prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]