Factors Behind the Long-Term Success in Innovation—In Focus Multinational IT Companies

Abstract

AbstractThis paper is focused on aspects of long-term innovativeness of multinational IT companies. Annually, there are several lists of the most innovative IT companies published, and many of IT companies are appearing in the first places for several years in a row. Our research is focused on those factors that enable these companies to maintain their innovativeness for several years. In order to identify the factors, we have compared investments into R&D of the four most innovative multinational IT companies and we conducted a survey about factors of corporate culture in IBM as one of the representatives of innovative multinational IT companies. Additionally, we reviewed business models of these companies in order to find out similarities and attitudes, which might have a positive influence on a long-term generation of innovations. The interview in the Innovation Centre of IBM allowed us to gain deeper insight into its processes. Thanks to our research we were able to identify specific factors of long-term innovativeness of multinational companies, which may be a source for further investigation as innovation management offers a wide range of perspectives since the field is continuously developing.