The Social Capital Influence on Enterprise Competitiveness in V4 Countries

The paper focuses the importance and influence of social and intellectual capital in the context of increasing competitiveness in V4 countries entrepreneurial environment. The Visegrad countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) have undergone remarkable economic transition since 1990 in spite of their different initial conditions, and have become members of the European Union in 2004. The economic reforms that were in line with the "Business model of transition", supported by the international institutions, and privatization attracted the massive inflow of foreign direct investment and know-how to these countries, helped to create the substantial SME sector, and increased the competitiveness of these countries in the international scale. In spite of the progress attained, the rapidly developing globalization and transformation to the knowledge based economy, opens new challenges for Visegrad countries. In near future they will have to substantially augment support for R&D, innovation, education, business cluster formation and transborder co-operation in order to stay competitive and help to fulfill the Lisbon strategy expectations in the European Union. In strategic terms, the social and intellectual capital can be understood not only as one of the most important factors in the success of entrepreneurial subjects but also as an important source of competitive advantages. Qualitative and quantitative dimensions of knowledge assets also affect the overall competitiveness of the enterprise. V4 countries are trying to increase their innovation performance in recent years. One of the tools used to enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of the clusters creation can be considered as forms of partnerships that create an environment suitable for innovation and knowledge creation. Due to this fact, the regions with strong clusters are regarded as innovative leaders and have a positive impact on the economic performance of businesses (Solvell 2009) and thus on their better competitiveness. As competitiveness has moved to a global level, the need for assessment has risen. The level of V4 countries competitiveness is evaluated in the present article by index of global competitiveness GCI (The Global Competitiveness Index).