Komplementarność innowacji procesowych i organizacyjnych polskich eksporterów

Many studies recognize importance of innovations for the international competitiveness of firms. This applies to both innovations introduced internally and those introduced in cooperation. The paper is based on a survey of 209 Polish manufacturing firms. It focuses on an analysis of the influence of process and organizational innovation on the firms’ export intensity and on new product sales intensity. The study reveals that process innovation (undertaken both internally and in cooperation with business partners) is positively related to the firms’ export intensity, while rejective the hypothesis that organizational innovation has an impact on export intensity. Moreover, the analysis provides evidence that both process and organizational innovations (introduced either internally or in cooperation) have no statistically significant influence on new product sales intensity of Polish exporters. These findings reflect the traditional competitive strategies based on the cost advantage rather than the differentiation-based advantage. The analysis of the relationships between process and organizational innovation reveals that these two types of innovation are positively related only in the high-export-intensity/high-new-product-sales-intensity cluster of firms. This correlation appears both in the case of internal and collaborative innovation. The authors argue that Polish exporters do not take full advantage of the opportunity to simultaneously implement complementary types of innovation and do not gain potential synergies from innovation.