INNOVATION OF ENTERPRISES WITHIN THE STRATEGIC ALLIANCE

Abstract

The innovativeness of enterprises is one of the key determinants of their market success. The sources of innovation should be sought not only among their own resources and employees, but also outside. In order to minimize the costs and risks of innovative activities, companies use their relationships with other market players. Co-operation between enterprises makes it possible to gain access to the resources and knowledge of cooperators, thanks to which it becomes possible to strengthen the ability to develop and implement innovative solutions. The aim of the article is to characterize the essence and importance of enterprise innovativeness and the type of innovation in the context of undertaking cooperation between enterprises. The presented results of empirical research identify the relationship between the size of partner enterprises and the duration of the agreement and the type of implemented innovations. The results of the research also allow to state that: there is a stronger dependence between innovations initiation and the duration of the alliance than in the case of the size of the enterprise, and the longer duration of the alliance favors implementation of process innovations rather than product and organizational innovations. The relationship between the type of implemented innovations and the size of cooperating enterprises was also defined. The results and conclusions indicate the importance of the characteristics studied for the innovativeness of enterprises, which may be the basis for building, maintaining and/or strengthening a competitive advantage by indicating new sources of its obtaining.
Key words: strategic alliance, innovations, innovative
JEL: L14, L24, O31, O32