Relational Resources Management as Source of Company's Innovativeness and Competitive Advantage

Abstract

There exist various resources which an enterprise can use in order to become more innovative and achieve competitive advantage on the market. Relational resources are definitely one of them, for instance enabling a company to make its customers more loyal or to attract new purchasers and other stakeholders. This paper presents the results of a study in which 200 Polish enterprises were asked about what relational resources they used and how frequently. Analysing the results, the authors of the study observed various interesting relationships between the use of relational resources and numerous factors such as the company’s development stage, ownership form, turnover, scope of activity and others. The general conclusion drawn is that more and more Polish enterprises tend to use and manage relational resources, but there still exists a visible difference between Poland and West European countries, as far as the extent of this use is concerned. Therefore, the authors of the study recommend a broader approach to the issue, since its development would be profitable from the economic point of view.