Friday, October 5, 2012: 5:15 PM
Ryszard Gradzki, Prof.
,
Instition of Social and Techique Management, Technical University of Lodz, Faculty of Organization and Management, Institute of Social Sciences and Management of Technologies, Lodz, Poland
Robert Stanislawski, Ph.D.
,
European Integration and International Marketing, Technical University of Lodz, Faculty of Organization and Management, Department of European Integration and International Marketing, Lodz, Poland
There is a gap between Polish and world economy. It is the result of innovative development, specially in such countries as: USA, Japan, Korea or other European countries. Differences are particularly noticed in small business (SME sector). As the research show, these companies are essential element of economic progress in most world’s countries. However, there is a compatition in this sector (between firms located in deferent countries) in many fields. One of the most important factor which allow to improved competitiveness in world’s arena is innovativeness. In Poland there are only 25 – 30% innovative firms. The reason of this situation are existing barriers which limit motivation in innovative progress. This article is aimed to at defining the barriers in the area of innovation progress and determinant which are very helpful in creation new solutions among firms in this sector. The most important is development of R&D sector (own research by companies) and support system (financial and cooperation to institutions) which are useful in implementation of innovations.
This article will be based on research commissioned by Polish government in 2010 -2011. in the SME sector. The research was a part of study concentrated on the estimation of SME innovation and support policy. There were approximately 300 innovative forms and 100 non-innovative enterprises which participated in this survey. The main method of this research was direct interview. The questionnaires were addressed to the owners (co-owners) of the SMEs and the managers. The research was directed to: firms that employed up to 249 persons, located in the four (five) provinces, and completely independent firms (which are not the part of other companies).
The research allowed to draw many interesting conclusions concerning estimation of the level of innovation process among the SME sector, identifications barriers and determinants in the innovation progress expectations of the entrepreneurs in this fields, and estimation of usefulness of support systems (institutions) on development innovativeness of Polish enterprises. The analysis provided materials to compare the innovation development of Polish SMEs to the European (world) innovation development presented in studies carried out by researches in different countries. Contained conclusions (which are the consequence of this research) are based on the original research conducted on the territory of Poland by the team of two university researchers. Hitherto such studies had not been undertaken as often as necessary due to their high costs.
