Dynamic Innovation Strategy Model in Practice of Innovation Leaders and Followers in CEE Countries—A Prerequisite for Building Innovative Ecosystems

Abstract

The task of each firm’s strategic management is to identify those sustainable sources of competitive advantage that represent a way to achieve business goals and competitive advantage. Business management should be able to define determinants that fundamentally influence the innovation activity of business. Innovation leaders are influenced by the same set of determinants that allow them to maintain their position in the market. Identifying these determinants is a key source of knowledge for defining or adjusting corporate strategies, enabling sustainable benefits and for efficient building and functioning of countries’ innovation ecosystems based on cross-agents’ interactions leading to sustainable development. The goal of this paper is to identify the combination of innovation determinants in Dynamic Innovation Strategic Model (DISM) driving creation and sustaining innovation leaders’ competitive advantage in selected European countries belonging to the group of moderate innovators. Likewise, authors define a unique set or combinations of factors that will (fundamentally embedded in a company strategy) have a significant impact on the innovative production of the business, which are one of the key elements of innovative ecosystems. With the use of CIS data (from Eurostat) on the innovators and followers of nine EU countries and own regression models, the key determinants of the success of the innovation leaders and followers were found. These determinants are (also in appropriate combination) mainly: in-house R&D activities, co-operation with various partners, and marketing and design. The results clearly show that for innovative leaders, key determinants have a positive impact on produced innovations; for the followers, the same group has a negative influence.

Revealing the importance of international and domestic cooperation by using artificial neural networks: case of European radical and incremental innovators

“…This is obviously related to the increased need for creativity, which is an essential component of incremental innovation. Consistent with the study by Kotkova Striteska and Prokop (2020) on the sample of innovation leaders and followers within nine EU countries, design activities have a positive influence on a firm's innovation, both for innovation leaders and followers. As these activities could represent new forms of value co-creation with customers, organizations and societal actors in general (Patrício et al , 2018), working with these partners (customers and clients) at the national level also proved important for incremental innovators.…”

“…Moreover, according to Romero-Martínez et al (2017), new knowledge obtained from international cooperation seems to be a crucial determinant of firms' innovation and strategic competitive advantage in terms of the concept of OI. By contrast, incremental innovators still suffer from mistrust and lock-in syndrome, which represent barriers to effective cooperation (Kotkova Striteska and Prokop, 2020). These incremental innovators therefore cannot fully benefit from foreign cooperation or in some cases from domestic cooperation.…”

The role of foreign technologies and R&D in innovation processes within catching-up CEE countries

“…First, we focus on the importance of internal and external knowledge sources. We expect that internal sources are crucial in stimulating firm's innovation capabilities and absorptive capacity, help to better understand innovation process within a firm and enhance innovative outputs and competitive advantage, specifically within CEE countries, which often lack of funds and insufficient incentives to cooperate [50][51][52]. Therefore, we hypothesize that: H 1 : Innovators in the catching-up CEE countries depend more on internal knowledge than on external knowledge.…”

“…Next, according to Kotkova Striteska and Prokop [52], the effectiveness of firms' science and research activities depends on their employees, their potential, and their ability to learn. Therefore, it is crucial for firms in Central and Eastern Europe to invest in the quality of workers and develop their potential.…”

The Relationship between Eco-Innovation and Smart Working as Support for Sustainable Management

“…The countries in this cluster represent Moderate Innovators and have important structural and economic problems and their flexibility regarding work balance life has a small impact on innovation. This could be also because this cluster includes number of Central and Eastern Europe countries that faced historically problems such as low trust connected with mental lock-in and difficulties in sharing information, lack of funds and insufficient incentives to cooperate, less developed social capital [63]. Especially in comparison with the countries of Northern and Western Europe.…”