Comprehensive Analysis of Forms of Innovative Activity of Foreign Railway Companies

The current stage of economic development is characterized by a structural crisis that manifests itself in many areas and sectors of the economy. This situation is explained, among other things, by the transitional state of the world economic system, caused by the process of rooting of a new technological order, development of Industry 4.0. The changes resulted from implementation of the process will play a key role in determining trends and directions of world economic development in the coming decades and will characterize the new technological structure and vectors of further development and introduction of technologies. The speed of development and introduction of new technologies and products is the main distinctive feature of the new technological paradigm. The most important indicators of the success of the new economic model will be thus speed, volume, and quality. Those companies that can adapt faster and better to the new realities of economic development will be the leaders of the new system of market economy. Speed and quality will be among key criteria that determine the success of a company in modern conditions: in the competition for leading positions, companies will have to do everything faster and better than others. The relevance of such a paradigm is confirmed by the reduction of research, technological and innovation cycles as for the time from emergence of an idea to its implementation and transfer to industrial operations. Mass digitalization of all aspects of activities and a reduction in duration of cycles of updating equipment and technologies determine the tendency for companies to reorient from an exclusively internal type of organization of innovation activities to, mainly, external ones. This article analyzes forms and tools for organizing innovative activities, including through building specific relationships with external participants in the innovation ecosystem. The research is focused on the practices of selected world railway companies. The objective of this article is to review the tools and methods of organizing innovation in selected leading railway companies and to identify its most common forms. A comprehensive analysis of functioning of forms of innovation was carried out using methods of structural and comprehensive comparative analysis, generalization, and deductive methods.