Determinants of innovative development and their importance for small and medium-sized enterprises in Poland

Abstract

Poland is a country poorly developed in terms of its innovativeness. It belongs to the penultimate group of countries according to the innovation level (moderate innovators). Despite its overall innovative development, a sharp decline (retardation) of innovative activity has been noted in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the last year. Hence, the need for analysing determinants (factors) of their innovative development. In the framework of this article, three groups of factors were taken into account: SMEs' strategy, resources and willingness to cooperate with the environment (open innovation). The analysis of their significance was made on the basis of the research carried out in 2016 on a group of 819 entities. It covered only those SMEs which had conducted innovative activity in the past three years, had headquarters in one of six voivodships in Poland and primarily conducted manufacturing activities. As part of the study, researchers answered the questions regarding the strength and significance of as well as the reasons for the impact of these determinants on SMEs' innovative development. The main aim of the article is to provide a multi-threaded overview of the issues of innovative development of SMEs and to conduct an analysis of determinants in this field.