Behavioural aspects of innovation decisions: the case of Hungarian food industry

Abstract

In Hungary, the food sector plays an important role with high level of export share and positive trade balance. On the contrary, since 1990 the domestic sales of the Hungarian food companies decreased by 40 % (EFOSZ, 2016). Although its share in the output of Hungarian food industry has decreased over the past decade, the food processing industry still remains one of the most important sub-sectors of the country’s economy. The industry employed 124,000 workers in 2011 and generated about 6% of the country’s exports (EUGO, 2016). On the other hand, the innovation activities of the Hungarian food industry are far below the level needed for boosting the competitiveness (EFOSZ, 2016). At the current growth rate of technical progress, the convergence between the Central- and Western European countries will be a very slow process (Gorton et. al., 2006). Very often the Central-European countries would need further progress in technology, in creation of new products, in procurement procedures which steps would require further substantial innovation and investment activities (Steffen W. Stephan, 2008). Central-European countries in general, and Hungary in particular have both a low level of innovation policies and low adoption rate of innovation (Caiazza et. al., 2015). In our paper we investigate the behavioural motives and drivers of decisionmakers in the Hungarian food industry. This approach is applied very exceptionally, therefore we can contribute to better understanding the development of food innovation both at practitioner as well as policy level. We use the empirical data of 2017 survey carried out in Hungary among the bigger food processing companies. 151 companies were questioned during the interviews. Theory of Planned Behaviour – TPB (Ajzen, 1991) was applied in order to explore the nature of individual drivers in the innovation decision making process. We used Structural Equation modelling for the analysis. Our investigation proves that TPB efficiently explain the development of innovation decision making progress. In Hungary, the positive attitude of managers towards innovative products, the positive evaluation of innovative products and the strategic intention of placing innovative products on the market have positive relationship with innovation performance. However, the lack of appropriate R&D capacities, resources as well as specific knowledge and skills are hindering the development of the desirable process.