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It is widely documented in the literature that innovators perceive business obstacles differently from non-innovators (Mohnen et al., 2008; Galia & Legros, 2004). Extant findings indicate that firms are able to surmount obstacles (Baldwin & Lin, 2002; Tourigny & Le, 2004) and efforts to understand how firms manage to innovate despite obstacles have been made (Radas & Božić, 2012). It has also been emphasized in the literature that we need to distinguish between obstacles that cause absence of innovation and those that make innovation difficult (D’Este et al., 2012; D’Este, Rentocchini, & Vega-Jurado, 2015).

Loyal customers are a key factor for successful retail activities. Customer loyalty can be defined as a higher probability of making new and repeated purchases, spontaneously recommending a particular retailer and spreading the positive word-of-mouth. “Loyal customers are less likely to switch to a competitor due to price inducement, and these customers make more purchases compared to less loyal customers” (Dhal, 2015; Mohelska & Sokolova, 2016) For the retailers, customer loyalty is a key factor in reaching long-term commercial success and profitability.

In the 1980´s the US economy was marked by until then rather unusual external and internal deficits. Similar situation gradually appeared in other countries. During last decade it was analysed in the case of so called PIIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) in the European Union. This co-movement draws interest of many researchers. Generally it is believed that internal deficit (fiscal budget deficit) causes external one (external balance deficit). External balance deficit is usually measured via trade or current account deficit. This phenomenon is called „twin deficit“. Twin deficit problem can be perceived as a vicious circle. High budget deficit generates important current account deficit and this in turn leads to higher budget deficit. Therefore twin deficit threat should be in the centre of attention of policy makers.

Even if most immigrants come from nonEU states, the EU membership is often considered as the UK’s perceived migration issue. Immigration is an actual problem in the UK and one of the main causes of Brexit. The debate regarding the immigrants issue is mostly referred to less developed countries from Central and Eastern Europe which joined the EU the latest. Some Britons considered that immigrants exerted high pressure on public services.

A Cohesion policy as well as innovation support is one of the main criteria and objectives of the European Union. A large part of these two policies are supported together through Structural funds. The past decade has witnessed a gradual shift from policies aimed at reducing disparities towards those aimed at strengthening regional and national competitiveness, with a focus on exploiting regional potential to contribute to national growth (Barca, 2009). Along with the issues of developmental support and related policy responses, studies dedicated to the role of innovation in this process represent a significant part of literature from the last three decades (Asheim, 1996).