Over 60 percent of Turkish enterprises with ten or more employees reported some form of innovation activity between 2014 and 2016, according to an official survey released on Tuesday.
The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data revealed that over the past three years, there was a 10.2 percentage-point increase in the ratio of innovative enterprises compared with the period 2012-2104, with the total ratio going up to 61.5 from 51.3 percent.
"The ratio was 60.4 percent for enterprises with 10-49 employees, 65 percent for those with 50-249 employees, and 70.4 percent for enterprises with 250 or more employees," TurkStat said, noting the ratio of innovative enterprises in the industry sector was 64.5 percent while it was 57.7 percent in the services sector.
The institute reported that 47.3 percent of enterprises were classified as product and/or process innovative -- including abandoned/suspended and ongoing activities -- in the past three years, up from 38 percent in the period comprising 2012, 2013 and 2014.
TurkStat survey showed that 27.6 percent of product and/or process innovators received public financial support -- including funds from the central government, local authorities and institutions from the European Union.
TurkStat said that 23 percent of product and/or process innovators cooperated with other enterprises and organizations.
"The ratio for cooperation with national partners was 97 percent," the institute said, adding the ratio was 35 percent for European countries and 28.4 percent for partners from other countries.
According to TurkStat, a product innovation introduces "a good or service that is new or significantly improved with respect to its characteristics or intended uses," while a process innovation is the implementation of a new or notably improved production or delivery method, including critical changes in techniques, equipment and/or software.
Organizational and marketing innovation
Over the same period, 50.8 percent of enterprises engaged in organizational and/or marketing innovation activities, while the figure was 41 percent in the period 2012-2014.
The most common organizational innovation type in enterprises was carrying out new methods of organizing work responsibilities and decision-making, TurkStat said, adding 79.5 percent of businesses carried out such methods.
"It was followed by new business practices for organizing procedures with 70.5 percent, and new methods of organizing external relations with other firms or public institutions with 29.2 percent," it added.
According to the official survey, new methods of pricing goods or services was the most common method for marketing innovation with 63.7 percent.
"It was followed by significant changes to the aesthetic design or packaging of a good or service with 57.7 percent, new media or techniques for product promotion with 57 percent and new methods for product placement or sales channels categories with 49.9 percent," TurkStat said.
TurkStat defines organizational innovation as the implementation of a new method in the firm's business practices, workplace organization or external relations, while it defines marketing innovation as the implementation of a new method involving significant changes in product design or packaging, product placement, product promotion or pricing.
Last month, the institute announced that Turkey's aggregate research and development expenditures in 2016 climbed 19.5 percent to reach 24.6 billion Turkish liras ($8.15 billion), while the country's gross domestic expenditure on research and development was 20.6 billion Turkish liras ($7.6 billion) in 2015.
