Characteristics of Open Innovation among Polish SMEs in the Context of Sustainable Innovative Development Focused on the Rational Use of Resources (Energy)

Abstract

Open innovations (OI) are playing an increasingly important role in the innovative development (RI) of SMEs. This has led to a need to analyze the impact of OI on innovative development serving the implementation of the assumptions of sustainable development, the positive effect of which is to reduce the negative impact on the environment thanks to a more rational use of both natural and produced resources (e.g., energy). This development is described in this article as “sustainable innovative development”. Research was conducted on a sample of 800 SMEs in Poland using the quantitative method (questionnaire). The aim of this study was to identify the impact of OI on sustainable innovation development. This goal was achieved through the verification of three research hypotheses. It turns out that SMEs obtain significant benefits by exploring the environment, i.e., by showing a high level of willingness to cooperate with various entities in the environment for sustainable innovative development. Moreover, the results show that SMEs cooperating with the environment are more developed in terms of sustainable innovative development than those that base their development on their own internal resources (no cooperation). Hence, it follows that OIs have a positive impact on sustainable innovative development.