Abstract:

For businesses, whether large or small and medium, it is increasingly difficult to maintain its competitiveness on the basis of the prices of factors and have to strive to produce increasingly using high share knowledge, especially innovation. The role of innovation is to maintain productive economies crucial and enable enterprises from developed countries, which have to face competition from developing economies, to succeed in globalized markets. Businesses must increasingly compete with the production of unique, specific know-how and innovations, they have to transfer their activities to research and knowledge-intensive productions that require high skills and adaptability of the workforce.The aim is to analyze innovation from a theoretical perspective and focus on supporting innovation in the Czech Republic - overview of institutions supporting the innovation activities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), their characteristics and selected programs that are used to support the development of innovative activity of SMEs. Further innovations are evaluated in terms of macroeconomics and finally analysis of the use of various types of innovation in manufacturing industries is made.