Open AccessIndustrial design as a determinant of shoe and tanning firms’ competitiveness
Author(s) -
Łukasz Mamica
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
equilibrium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2353-3293
pISSN - 1689-765X
DOI - 10.12775/equil.2010.017
Subject(s) - quarter (canadian coin) , business , unit (ring theory) , industrial organization , production (economics) , competitive advantage , scale (ratio) , marketing , operations management , economics , microeconomics , mathematics , geography , mathematics education , cartography , archaeology
Firms are looking for optimal combination of factors, which allow them to achieve competitive advantage. With the passage of time the role of these factors are changing. The article presents results of authors’ research, which covered 20 firms from shoe and 15 from tanning production. The research was carried out in Poland in the second quarter of 2009. It showed that the most important factor of firms’ competitiveness are establishment of cooperation with R&D unit and receiving financial grant for R&D activity (both these factors received average mark 3,41 in five points scale, where 1 is not important at all and 5 the most important). Special attention during the research was given to the role of industrial design. The most import for researched firms in this field were increasing their products’ recognition (mark 4,06) and increasing aesthetic (3,94).