Austrian Research and Technology Report 2020

Fig. 1-23: The Global Social Mobility Index, total values, 2020
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
DN
K
FIN
SW
E
NL
D
AU
T
BE
L
LU
X
DEU
FR
A
SV
N
M
LT
IRL
CZ
E
GBR
ES
T
Ø E
U-2
8
PR
T
LT
U
ES
P
CY
P
POL
LV
A
SV
K
ITA
HRV
HU
N
BG
R
RO
U
GRC
CH
E
CA
N
AU
S
US
A
CH
N
BR
A
ZAF
EU Member States
Reference countries
Source: World Economic Forum (2020b). Graphic: iit.

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1. Current Trends
51
data (from 2017). The results illustrate that Austria 
has a high degree of economic complexity, coming 
third out of the EU-28 behind Germany and Czechia. 
The country also measures up well compared with 
the non-EU member states selected for this study. 
Austria’s high ranking in terms of economic complex-
ity conforms to the data on competitiveness, among 
others. Thus, it can be concluded that Austria is in a 
good position not only to generate innovations in the 
future, but also to successfully position itself on the 
international market. 
Structural capital 
The potential for groups, organisations, networks or 
societies to produce innovations is closely linked to 
their capability to combine all manner of different 
skills, abilities and strands of knowledge. This capa-
bility is termed “structural capital” and is a charac-
teristic feature of innovation at company or organisa-
tion level. Structural capital reflects structures and 
processes that bring disparate strands of knowledge 
together within a company and thus lay the structur-
al foundations for innovation. This includes R&D-fo-
cused organisational units, organisational formats 
conducive to learning and work contexts that stimu-
late innovation. 
The Austrian Research and Technology Report 
2019 operationalised structural capital using the 
“Work organisation conducive to learning” indicator 
from the European Working Conditions Survey. This 
indicator records different ways of structuring work 
so as to promote innovation, such as autonomy at 
work and the opportunity to learn new things. As the 
latest data on the indicator are not yet available, 
however, two other indicators that also allow conclu-
sions to be drawn about structures conducive to in-
novation are used here to measure structural capital. 
They are taken from the World Economic Forum and 
the European Innovation Scoreboard 2019. 
One of the questions asked in the World Economic