| Abstract [eng] |
This Master’s thesis is dedicated to analyze the topic of the innovativeness of Lithuanian dairy farms, due to the increasing amount of discussion on the importance of innovations on the development of sustainable and competitive farms. The rapid growth of world’s total population leads to increased consumption and a higher demand for food, which, in turn, causes new challenges and requires changes in dairy farms. In order to implement these changes, it is essential to discover new and innovative development methods in these farms. An ever increasing competition in today’s economy is also a concern, thus the implementation of innovations becomes vital for the survival and expansion of companies. It is of great importance for these companies to invest in innovations, research and experimental expansion. In order to fulfill the increasing demands of customers, sustain competitiveness and increase effectiveness, a more thorough evaluation of the innovativeness of a company is necessary. The object of Master’s thesis – the innovativeness of dairy farms. The aim of the study is to evaluate the innovativeness of Lithuanian dairy farms and its determining factors. In this project we attempt to analyze the current state of Lithuanian dairy farms with emphasis on the dynamics of economic indexes in international context, review the challenges in research of dairy farm innovativeness, examine the definition of innovativeness, its significance on company’s activities, the factors determining the innovativeness and its evaluation methods. Another objective is to design a methodology for evaluating the innovativeness of dairy farms, perform the evaluation on Lithuanian dairy farms and analyze the results. In this research we employ the following methods: analysis of scientific literature, comparative analysis of statistical data, questionnaire survey and logical analysis and interpretation of data. The results of this research allow us to evaluate the innovativeness of a dairy farm and compare it to other Lithuanian dairy farms. It was determined that the most significant factors pertaining to the participants of innovative activities are the attitudes of the executives and the support of government institutions. The results of an expert study revealed that the implementation of technology and innovations, the progress of dairy farms management and the innovativeness of the dairy product is the most important intrinsic factors for the innovativeness of dairy farms. These results allow farmers to examine and evaluate the areas that require development and improvement. The evaluation methods are suitable not only for local application, but for foreign dairy farms as well. |
