ACHIEVING INNOVATIVENESS THROUGH PARTICIPATION IN GLOBAL VALUE CHAINS: VIEWS OF MANAGERS OF BULGARIAN FURNITURE ENTERPRISES

Global value chains (GVCs) are a driver of economic transformation and growth of local economies. They are a channel for the dissemination of technological knowledge, entrepreneurial culture and innovation capacity. Global leaders can create opportunities for local producers to improve their position in the supply chain. A large part of Bulgarian enterprises do not participate in such chains. Presently, with Western markets experiencing stagnation, anticipations arise for disruptions within the Bulgarian furniture industry, likely to exert a substantial impact on the GVCs and hence on their innovativeness. The paper aims to outline the current state, trends and challenges ahead of the Bulgarian furniture enterprises, related to achieving innovativeness through participation in GVCs. It is done through a survey of managerial vision and opinion related to achieving innovativeness through participation in such chains. Data from online questionaries distributed among managers of Bulgarian furniture companies between November 2023 and February 2024 is presented. The study of statistical relationships and dependencies is based on the Chi-square test with the program IBM - SPSS Statistics. The study supports the literature concerning the involvement of furniture companies in GVCs.