Innovation and the Development of Enterprises

Dear Colleagues,

It is a well-known fact that an enterprise is defined nowadays as innovative if it is an intelligent organisation of the future, characterised by flexibility, great involvement, the full use of teamwork potential, strong key competence, and a penchant for variety. The innovativeness of business entities is therefore understood as their ability and motivation to constantly search for and apply in practice the results of research and development, new concepts, ideas, and inventions. It means that enterprises that aim at winning a constant competitive advantage are forced to constantly enhance their activity and search for various solutions for improving it. The answer to this problem is research and development (R&D) aimed at defining opportunities and threats in the environment, which as a result can enable companies to redefine their business objectives. Nowadays, enterprises have been facing new challenges in the form of more intense international competition and the development of new technologies, which, on the one hand, displace traditional methods of organisation and management but on the other encourage change of attitudes towards innovation on the other. These conditions determine the existence of multiple factors determining research and development and innovation, which create a new context for innovation management in enterprises. They include mainly the following:

• The globalisation of markets;
• The increasing significance of strategic alliances;
• New entries to the global market—new countries whose technology can compete on a global level;
• The increasing internationalisation of enterprises, research, and innovation;
• More and more intense interrelations between research and technology;
• Increasing research costs, exceeding the capacity of individual organisations, regions, or even entire economies;
• Growing unemployment;
• The increasing relevance of environmental protection.

The innovativeness of an enterprise therefore depends on a variety of factors that determine its scope and level of activity. R&D activities in enterprises and the efficient application of innovation enable survival and winning a better position in the international market. The stimulation of R&D and innovative activities can constitute a basis for improvement in the competitive advantage of companies in domestic and international markets. This Special Issue will comprise a selection of papers addressing approaches to innovation and the R&D activity of enterprises and economies. Covered topics include the definition of the concept of business innovation, R&D, new product development and technological innovation, strategic alliances within the scope of innovation management, the internationalization of R&D, the determinants of innovation activity, case studies both in terms of functioning of innovation and the R&D sphere in enterprises, as well as the innovativeness of economies in the global market. Papers selected for this Special Issue are subject to a rigorous peer review procedure, with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications.

Dr. Katarzyna Szopik-Depczyńska
Guest Editor

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