Abstract
The paper elaborates on the innovativeness of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Poland from the regional perspective. The empirical evidence is based on data collected among 820 Polish SMEs which actively use ICT tools in their business processes. Identifying firm-level (internal) and regional drivers of innovations in these enterprises was the main aim of this study. The originality of the utilized research approach lies in combining within one framework firm-level data with meso data describing the innovative potential of the regional environment and using multilevel random-effects models to analyze the relevance of firm-level and regional drivers of SMEs’ innovativeness. By deploying a regional random effects approach, we assessed indirectly the effectiveness of innovation policies conducted in Polish NUTS 2 regions within a RIS and S3 framework. Interestingly, the research hypothesis, stating that regional (external) factors are more important to enhance innovativeness of SME than firm-level (internal) drivers, was verified negatively. The study revealed that SMEs in less-developed regions of Poland rely more on in-house capabilities, than on the regional innovative potential, to introduce different types of innovations. This suggests that the S3 framework in less-developed regions should concentrate more on linking firm-level factors and regional innovation systems to enhance companies’ innovation capacity.
Highlights
Innovation capacity at the enterprise level is, to a large extent, dependent on the meso and macro-level drivers related to the innovation climate, as well as the systems and processes which constitute innovation policy
The RIC approach utilized in this study revealed the dominant position of the Mazowieckie region (Table 2), which is in line with the results of other studies, including the Regional Innovation Scoreboard, which is used to evaluate the innovativeness of regions in the European Union (RIS, 201412)
The results confirmed that having an R&D department, the quality of labor employed in enterprises, investments in and the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), organizational change, and motivation systems are key firm-level drivers of the innovativeness of Polish SMEs – most of these drivers are classified as co-innovative sources of productivity (Torrent-Sellens & Ficapal-Cusi, 2010)
Summary
Innovation capacity at the enterprise level (micro) is, to a large extent, dependent on the meso and macro-level drivers related to the innovation climate, as well as the systems and processes which constitute innovation policy. From this point of view, Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) face additional challenges compared to countries with an advanced market economy system (e.g., the EU15). CEECs and their regions have taken a major step forward in terms of developing coherent innovations policies within the framework of the EU’s cohesion policy, innovative capacity at the macro and micro level is still relatively low
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