Abstract:

In recent years, quite common is the claim that the key to the success of companies and entire economies in today's world is innovation, which is the ability to continuously seek, implementation and dissemination of innovation (Schumpeter 1934). Numerous scientific studies also indicate a positive translation of enterprises’ innovativeness into their competitiveness, improvement of financial results or image in the public perception (eg.: Calantone et al. 2002, Hult et al. 2004, Jin et al. 2004, Faleye et al. 2014, Bernstein 2015). One of the main determinants of an organization's innovativeness is its innovative activity and the results obtained within its implementation. According to the OECD (Oslo Manual) methodology, which is also used by different national statistical offices in their research, innovative activity consists in engaging enterprises in various types of scientific, technical, organizational, financial and commercial activities, which lead or are intended to lead to the implementation of product, process, marketing or organizational innovations (OECD and Eurostat 2018). In practice, however, this activity is characterized by significant differentiation in terms of both its implementation - the issue of the scale of involvement, continuity and degree of innovation of the work undertaken, as well as final results - implementation of innovation, in progress, abandonment before implementation (PwC 2013, KPMG 2014), which means, that the perception of enterprises as innovative may also be highly diversified.