Przyczyny mniejszej aktywności firm usługowych w obszarze działalności innowacyjnej

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the factors that may have impact on the lower level of service firms’ innovation activities, that can be found from empirical data on innovation activities (mainly Community Innovation Surveys). We can distinguish two categories of such factors. The first category, including factors such as: a much lower attention given to the issue of service firms’ innovation activities, an intangibility of services and service innovations, and the problem how to measure service innovations, may contribute to the underestimation of service firms’ innovation activities. On the other hand factors such as: an ease to imitate service innovations and a poor system of intellectual property rights protection in service firms, as well as a weak connection of service firms with national innovation systems may discourage service firms to spend more and become more active in the field of innovation activities. All these factors are the subject of analysis in the paper. To identify them, it seems very important, both for further research and for innovation policy, especially in the light of increasing convergence between manufacturing and service sectors, and the increasing importance of service innovations in both sectors. Finally, the author analyzes and evaluates the actions that have been taken recently in order to improve the quality of data on service firms’ innovation activities.