EDUCATION AS THE SOURCE OF A KNOWLEDGE TURNED INTO INNOVATION AS WELL AS A CONCEPT OF COMPETITIVENESS

Abstract

Education contains a large number of activities connected with the process of acquiring different forms of ordinary and specialized knowledge within formally oriented educational institutions. Concerning an individual, knowledge can be acquired by or through cognitive processes such as knowledge.Concerning a society, knowledge acquisition goes through a process of cooperation and interaction. Process of knowledge acquisition is complex and consists of numerous raw data processesof transformation into information. Unlike formal education, informal education occurs outside of a structured curriculum and formal institutions through the influences of family, work and society. Mindset expansion initiates a rising need for further education that influences the advancement of civic consciousness, science and technology development, simplifying the usage processes of natural and human resources and increasing of cultural awareness. Moreover, an education has a positive influence on performance enhancement of economic actors as well as on companies and countries competitiveness development. According to its characteristics, knowledge fundamentally differentiates in relation to manufacturing resources. That is, whenever knowledge is applied or used, it does not decrease. On the contrary, whenever knowledge is applied or transferred, it increases. Within the knowledge economy, as the phenomenon that appeared in science during the last decade of the previous century, there is the specific form of knowledge which can be characterized as the knowledge commercially turned into innovation. According to economic analysts, without exception, innovations are major driver of enterprises and countries competitiveness development.
Competitiveness of a national economy relates to all economic, scientific, technological, organizational, managerial, marketing and other capabilities that can be implemented into goods and services production thus enabling the national economy to compete with foreign goods on domestic and international markets. National competitiveness is related to a country capability to achieve high economic growth rates, insurestable increase of real income and increase the standard of living.
The importance of competitiveness concept has radically increased globally during the recent years. This can be explained by the fact that competitivenesscan theoretically cause more complex consequences. However, approaches to competitiveness phenomena research can vary to a large extent. On the one hand, there is a certain number of analysts who firmly state that competitiveness possesses characteristics of “modern marketing economy natural law”. On the other hand, there are analysts who think that competitiveness can be defined completely by the category of productivity.