Comparing the innovation performance of EU candidate countries: an entropy-based TOPSIS approach

Figures & data

Figure 1. Map of Europe and the candidate countries. Source: http://www.worldatlasbook.com/europe/europe-blank-map.html

Table 1. Evaluation variables for case study 1.

No.	Abbreviation	Variables
1	A	FDI Inflows as % of GDP^a
2	B	Royalty and Licence Fees Payments (US$/population)
3	C	Royalty Payments and receipts(US$/ population)
4	D	Science and Engineering Enrolment Ratio (%)
5	E	Science Enrolment Ratio (%)
6	F	Total Expenditure for R&D^b as % of GDP
7	G*	University-Company Research Collaboration (1–7)
8	H	S&E^c Journal Articles / Million People
9	I*	Availability of Venture Capital (1–7)
10	J	Patents Granted by USPTO^d / Mil. People
11	K*	Private Sector Spending on R&D (1–7)
12	L*	Firm-Level Technology Absorption (1–7)
13	M*	Value Chain Presence (1–7)
14	N	S&E articles with foreign co-authorship (%)
15	O	Avg number of citations per S&E article
16	P*	Intellectual Property Protection (1–7)

^a GDP: Gross Domestic Product.

^b R&D: Research and Development.

^c S&E: Science and Engineering.

^d USPTO: United States Patent and Trademark Office.

^* Indicates that the variable is measured by 7-point Likert scale.

Table 2. The normalised decision matrix (P_ij) for the entropy method in case study 1.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
Macedonia	0.228	0.203	0.214	0.290	0.321	0.058	0.227	0.027	0.269	0.001	0.215	0.211	0.239	0.365	0.177	0.231
Iceland	0.362	0.287	0.233	0.194	0.205	0.664	0.325	0.720	0.258	0.989	0.322	0.335	0.282	0.339	0.436	0.381
Serbia	0.321	0.404	0.468	0.277	0.265	0.095	0.227	0.138	0.237	0.005	0.215	0.191	0.204	0.201	0.186	0.194
Turkey	0.089	0.106	0.085	0.239	0.209	0.183	0.221	0.114	0.237	0.005	0.248	0.263	0.275	0.096	0.201	0.194

Table 3. E_j, d_j and w_j values in Case study 1.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
Ej	0.927	0.928	0.890	0.992	0.987	0.700	0.990	0.618	0.999	0.050	0.989	0.983	0.994	0.924	0.940	0.969
dj	0.073	0.072	0.110	0.008	0.013	0.300	0.010	0.382	0.001	0.950	0.011	0.017	0.006	0.076	0.060	0.031
wj	0.0345	0.0341	0.0517	0.0039	0.0059	0.1413	0.0048	0.1803	0.0005	0.4483	0.0050	0.0082	0.0027	0.0358	0.0281	0.0149

Table 4. The normalised decision matrix (R_ij) for the TOPSIS method in case study 1.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H	I	J	K	L	M	N	O	P
Macedonia	0.421	0.372	0.374	0.573	0.630	0.083	0.448	0.037	0.537	0.001	0.423	0.413	0.475	0.669	0.326	0.442
Iceland	0.668	0.526	0.407	0.384	0.404	0.952	0.640	0.970	0.515	1.000	0.635	0.654	0.559	0.622	0.801	0.728
Serbia	0.592	0.740	0.820	0.547	0.520	0.136	0.448	0.186	0.472	0.005	0.423	0.372	0.405	0.368	0.341	0.371
Turkey	0.164	0.194	0.149	0.473	0.411	0.262	0.435	0.154	0.472	0.005	0.488	0.513	0.545	0.175	0.369	0.371

Table 5. Result of the entropy-based TOPSIS approach in case study 1.

	S^*	S^-	C^*	Rank by the Entropy-based TOPSIS approach
Macedonia	0.4947	0.0238	0.0459	4
Iceland	0.0226	0.4948	0.9563	1
Serbia	0.4823	0.0510	0.0957	2
Turkey	0.4822	0.0331	0.0643	3

Table 6. Evaluation variables in case study 2.

No.	Abbreviation	Variables
1	A_2*	Capacity for Innovation
2	B_2*	Quality of Scientific Research Institutions
3	C_2*	Company Spending on R&D
4	D_2*	University-Industry Collaboration in R&D
5	E_2*	Gov’t Procurement of Advanced Tech Products
6	F_2*	Availability of Scientists and Engineers
7	G_2	PCT Patents, Applications/Million Pop.

^* Indicates that the variable is measured by 7-point Likert scale.

Table 7. The normalised decision matrix (P_ij) for the entropy method in case study 2.

	A_2	B_2	C_2	D_2	E_2	F_2	G_2
Macedonia	0.246	0.230	0.254	0.243	0.252	0.235	0.002
Iceland	0.282	0.298	0.303	0.303	0.252	0.277	0.908
Serbia	0.211	0.230	0.205	0.211	0.203	0.235	0.023
Turkey	0.261	0.242	0.238	0.243	0.294	0.253	0.068

Table 8. E_j, d_j and w_j values in case study 2.

	A_2	B_2	C_2	D_2	E_2	F_2	G_2
Ej	0.996	0.996	0.993	0.994	0.994	0.998	0.266
dj	0.004	0.004	0.007	0.006	0.006	0.002	0.734
wj	0.0050	0.0058	0.0094	0.0082	0.0079	0.0022	0.9614

Table 9. The normalised decision matrix (R_ij) for the TOPSIS method in case study 2.

	A_2	B_2	C_2	D_2	E_2	F_2	G_2
Macedonia	0.490	0.457	0.503	0.483	0.499	0.469	0.002
Iceland	0.560	0.593	0.601	0.600	0.499	0.553	0.997
Serbia	0.420	0.457	0.406	0.417	0.402	0.469	0.025
Turkey	0.518	0.481	0.471	0.483	0.583	0.505	0.074

Table 10. Result of the entropy-based TOPSIS approach in case study 2.

	S^*	S^-	C^*	Rank by the Entropy-based TOPSIS approach
Macedonia	0.9563	0.0014	0.0014	4
Iceland	0.0007	0.9563	0.9993	1
Serbia	0.9343	0.0220	0.0230	3
Turkey	0.8871	0.0692	0.0724	2

Table 11. Evaluation variables for case study 3.

No.	Abbreviation	Variables
1	A_3	Human Resources
2	B_3	Open, Excellent and Attractive Research Systems
3	C_3	Finance and Support
4	D_3	Firm Investments
5	E_3	Linkages & Entrepreneurship
6	F_3	Intellectual Assets
7	G_3	Innovators
8	H_3	Economic Effects

Table 12. The normalised decision matrix (P_ij) for the entropy method in case study 3.

	A_3	B_3	C_3	D_3	E_3	F_3	G_3	H_3
Macedonia	0.310	0.100	0.038	0.124	0.136	0.058	0.244	0.181
Iceland	0.282	0.625	0.483	0.296	0.571	0.664	0.352	0.308
Serbia	0.324	0.142	0.287	0.280	0.185	0.095	0.237	0.308
Turkey	0.085	0.133	0.193	0.301	0.108	0.182	0.166	0.204

Table 13. E_j, d_j and w_j values for case study 3.

	A_3	B_3	C_3	D_3	E_3	F_3	G_3	H_3
Ej	0.933	0.771	0.830	0.964	0.825	0.701	0.975	0.980
dj	0.067	0.229	0.170	0.036	0.175	0.299	0.025	0.020
wj	0.0653	0.2240	0.1667	0.0353	0.1714	0.2932	0.0246	0.0195

Table 14. The normalised decision matrix (R_ij) for the TOPIS method in case study 3.

	A_3	B_3	C_3	D_3	E_3	F_3	G_3	H_3
Macedonia	0.578	0.151	0.063	0.237	0.217	0.084	0.473	0.352
Iceland	0.525	0.944	0.811	0.568	0.914	0.952	0.681	0.599
Serbia	0.604	0.214	0.482	0.537	0.296	0.136	0.458	0.599
Turkey	0.158	0.201	0.325	0.577	0.173	0.262	0.321	0.397

Table 15. Result of the entropy-based TOPSIS approach for case study 3.

	S^*	S^-	C^*	Rank by the Entropy-based TOPSIS approach
Macedonia	0.3555	0.0287	0.0748	4
Iceland	0.0052	0.3590	0.9858	1
Serbia	0.3134	0.0822	0.2078	2
Turkey	0.3038	0.0699	0.1871	3

Table 16. Evaluation variables in case study 4.

No.	Abbreviation	Variables
1	A_4	Institutions
2	B_4	Human capital and research
3	C_4	Infrastructure
4	D_4	Market sophistication
5	E_4	Business sophistication
6	F_4	Knowledge and technology
7	G_4	Creative

Table 17. The normalised decision matrix (P_ij) for the entropy method in case study 4.

	A_4	B_4	C_4	D_4	E_4	F_4	G_4
Macedonia	0.248	0.222	0.188	0.264	0.259	0.216	0.204
Iceland	0.321	0.330	0.311	0.266	0.334	0.334	0.390
Serbia	0.227	0.204	0.255	0.221	0.218	0.227	0.187
Turkey	0.204	0.244	0.246	0.249	0.189	0.223	0.219

Table 18. E_j, d_j and w_j values in case study 4.

	A_4	B_4	C_4	D_4	E_4	F_4	G_4
Ej	0.989	0.987	0.989	0.998	0.983	0.987	0.965
dj	0.011	0.013	0.011	0.002	0.017	0.013	0.035
wj	0.1056	0.1278	0.1086	0.0182	0.1652	0.1264	0.3482

Table 19. The normalised decision matrix (R_ij) for the TOPSIS method in case study 4.

	A_4	B_4	C_4	D_4	E_4	F_4	G_4
Macedonia	0.488	0.436	0.371	0.526	0.505	0.424	0.388
Iceland	0.632	0.649	0.612	0.530	0.653	0.655	0.742
Serbia	0.448	0.401	0.503	0.441	0.425	0.446	0.355
Turkey	0.402	0.478	0.484	0.498	0.370	0.438	0.416

Table 20. Result of the entropy-based TOPSIS approach in case study 4.

	S^*	S^-	C^*	Rank by the Entropy-based TOPSIS approach
Macedonia	0.1352	0.0272	0.1676	3
Iceland	0.0000	0.1534	1.0000	1
Serbia	0.1478	0.0179	0.1081	4
Turkey	0.1307	0.0267	0.1696	2

Table 21. Benchmarking innovation performance.

Case Study	Data Resource	The number of variables	Ranking by data resource	Ranking by the proposed approach
Case Study 1	Knowledge Assessment Methodology	16	I > S > T > M	I > S > T > M
Case Study 2	The Global Competitiveness Index (Innovation pillar)	7	I > T > M > S	I > T > S > M
Case Study 3	Innovation Union Scoreboard	8	I > S > T > M	I > S > T > M
Case Study 4	Global Innovation Index	7	I > M > T > S	I > T > M > S

I: Iceland, S: Serbia, T:Turkey, M: Macedonia (FYR).

Figure 2. Ranking with respect to different tools/methods.