Innovativeness determinants of network organizations

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to analyse a broad spectrum of innovative activity of Polish network organisations, to identify the sources and conditions conducive to the development and implementation of business innovation in network enter- prises and an attempt to diagnose the impact of innovation on the functioning and development of network organisations. The following research questions related to the innovativeness of network or- ganisations in the empirical study were raised: 1. Why do network organisations create and implement innovations? 2. Are the network organisations innovative only through the implementation of new and improvement of existing products and technologies or through other type of improving actions? 3. Which types of network organisations have a higher innovative activity? 4. What sources of innovation dominate in network organisations? 5. What are the benefits of implementing innovations in network organisations? Is the increase in income a really dominant factor around which the benefits of the use of innovation gather in network organisations or maybe are there more differentiated advantages perceived by the participants of the network, which make implementation of innovation an important and cost-effective factor?