Diversification of innovation strategies of Polish industrial processing enterprises depending on their size after the global financial crisis

Abstract

The purpose of this arti cle is to defi ne an innovati on strategy for Polish industrial processing enterprises for 2012-2014, i.e. aft er a negati ve external shock which escalated in [2008][2009][2010] and was associated with a global fi nancial crisis. Various types of enterprises (small, medium, large), geographic scope of markets, forms of innovati on acti vity of enterprises, decisions by enterprises regarding innovati on implementati on types, methods of product development and process innovati ons by enterprises, and forms of eco-innovati on which are the most frequent in industrial processing, were studied as well as barriers to innovati on. Overall, seven detailed research hypotheses were stati sti cally verifi ed using a chi-square test for independence. Subsequently, due to a high number of variables taken into account in the study as well as the necessity of providing a detailed descripti on of the relati onships between them, a correspondence analysis was employed. The analysis was aimed at reducing the multi -dimensional space where the studied phenomena occur to a space of fewer dimensions, in this case, to two dimensions. This allows for a careful examinati on of the co-occurrence of the phenomena using biplots. A relati vely slight tendency of enterprises towards innovati on was established as well as cauti on in its implementati on, which may result from the relati ve persistence of the exogenous shock eff ects. At the same ti me, there is a clear tendency towards eco-innovati on in a broader perspecti ve, with a slow decrease -as presumed by enterprises -in the importance of barriers to innovati on. Practi cal conclusions following from the study show the need to emphasize the benefi ts of innovati on, especially eco-innovati on, in pro-innovati on policy, which will help to avoid the adverse eff ects of the external shock -psychological barriers and This is an open access arti cle under the CC BY license (htt ps://creati ecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). 36 / Diversification of innovation strategies of Polish industrial processing enterprises depending on their size after the global financial crisis Evolving Enterprise Competences as a Consequence of Response to Changes in the Environment Anna Ujwary-Gil, Natalia Potoczek (Eds.)excessive caution in innovation planning and implementation. The article presents an original, unique, and comprehensive analysis of the relationships between sixty-three variables describing the innovation activity of enterprises. Therefore, the value of the article lies in an original and strictly empirical approach to the problems of innovation in the industrial processing sector, which means that the study presented in it might become a possible model for such analyses in the future.

Innovativeness of Industrial Processing Enterprises and Conjunctural Movement

“…Studies on the innovativeness of Polish industrial processing enterprises in three periods, prosperity (2004–2006), global financial crisis (2008–2010), and recovery (2012–2014) led to many interesting discoveries [ 35 , 36 , 37 ]. The most important of them include: demonstration of the significant impact of interactions between the ownership sectors and types of enterprises on research results; detection of a low level of innovativeness of public enterprises compared to other enterprises from different ownership sectors (i.e., private and mixed); exemplification of Schumpeter’s creative destruction theory by showing that innovative enterprises are developing in accordance with the Red Queen dynamics; demonstration of the insensitivity of the effects and goals of innovative activity of companies to cyclical factors (business cycle phases); confirmation of the occurrence of the Polish Green Island effect as a fact and not government propaganda; and validation of the hypothesis that the global financial crisis is associated with the turn of the Fifth and Sixth Kondratieff waves.…”

“…The importance of the interrelationships between ownership sectors and types of enterprises for the innovation activity of enterprises, and thus what cybernetic diagrams (3)–(8) show can be demonstrated empirically. During the 2012–2014 survey, it became apparent that the independence test demonstrates a statistically significant relationship only between the types of enterprises and the twenty-two objectives of innovation, which include both the four basic types of innovation (product, process, organizational, and marketing) as well as eco-innovations ( Table 6 , Table 7 and Table 8 and Figure 1 and Figure 2 ) [ 35 , 37 ]. When three ownership sectors are included (public, private, and mixed) in the analysis, this relationship disappears ( Table 9 and Figure 3 ) [ 37 ].…”

“…In other words, during the recovery period, the goals of innovation activities are independent of the interaction between ownership sectors and types of enterprises. Compared to other periods, the correspondence maps ( Figure 1 , Figure 2 and Figure 3 ) showed a significant decrease in average distances between points representing ownership sectors and types of enterprises, and points corresponding to the objectives of innovative activity ( Table 10 and Figure 4 , Table 11 and Figure 5 ) [ 35 , 37 ]. The total inertia of the entire industrial processing section has become close to zero ( Table 12 ) [ 37 ].…”

“…In addition, other feedback loops were included depending on the information contained in individual databases. Innovations implemented in a given period may contribute to the growth of innovations in subsequent years by affecting independent variables [ 35 , 36 , 37 ].…”

“…The data were collected by the Statistical Office in Szczecin based on the PNT-02 questionnaires, which were subject to some modifications in the above-mentioned periods, but these changes were not significant enough to polarize observations in a way that could hinder the comparability of the research results. Nevertheless, there were some differences in the design of questionnaires in each of the periods, which as a consequence necessitated the development and adaptation of the relationship (2) to each of the three-year periods of analysis [ 35 , 36 , 37 ].…”