Indicators of innovativeness and enterprise competitiveness in the wood products industry in Finland

This paper presents the results of two studies where the indicators characteristic for innovations in wood products industries were analysed and an index for the overall innovativeness was developed, and the competitiveness of the wood products enterprises was studied in relation to the indicators of innovativeness. The results of the Delphi survey (n = 63) illustrate that "soft" indicators such as the level of education of personnel were seen as less important for innovativeness than "hard" indicators. The most important "hard" indicators were investments in research and development, new products and processes achieved and the number of new patents applied. The results of the case study of 19 wood products enterprises illustrate that the profitability of the companies was negatively correlated with the amount of enterprises' own risk funding, but positively correlated with the number of new products that have entered into the markets and the share of exports.