Keywords

JEL Classification

1 Introduction

The survival and development of enterprises in unstable environment requires unique competences of management staff and personnel, first of all in strategic effectiveness, operating effectiveness, project management and innovativeness skills. Innovativeness understood as the ability to create and implement innovations is a contemporary method of manufacturing new products in a better or changed way, method of improving processes and relationships, method of achieving the strategic and operational goals of an organization (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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Source Author’s own elaboration

The structure of project and innovation management in an organization.

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An innovative business model defines the catalogue of projects and goals constituting the overall strategy of an enterprise. The strategy implementation justifies undertaking restructuring and innovative activities, uses the project management method, as well as supervision and control instruments. The creation of innovation model can be used in the organization’s business activities for the development of knowledge and innovation as well as raising its competitiveness.

The aim of the article is to present the concept of the dichotomy of the innovation process in an enterprise and presentation of the results of empirical research. The study has been created as an attempt to show the author’s concept of creating and implementing innovations.

The following theses were adopted in the presented concept: innovation process, regardless of the type of innovation, can be approached twofold, namely as the process of invention of innovation and the process of implementation of innovation. The determinants of both processes and research instruments are totally different, nevertheless, in numerous innovation models it constituted a coherent whole: from invention to innovation and to imitation of innovation, which remarkably complicates practical implementation of this pattern.

In its strategy an enterprise can define the subject and scope of innovative activity according to the possessed innovation ability, as well as project abilities to dynamize and steer innovation activity. It has been assumed that innovation can constitute both a complete innovation process and a part of this process that has an innovative character.

As a thesis it was also assumed that the method of evaluating innovation ability of an enterprise is an effective instrument of identification of competences and the level of knowledge of the management staff and employees with regard to innovativeness. The analysis of the level of knowledge, therefore the awareness and motivation of employees within the mentioned scope, influences the effectiveness of innovation process.

The article is of theoretical and empirical character. To achieve the aim and verify the theses, the following research methods were used: literature analysis, impact factor analysis, expert research and questionnaire method, professional conversations with experts, conversations with managers regarding pragmatics of innovation management in an enterprise.

2 Around the Term of Innovation in an Organization

Innovation, in its essence, is variously understood and defined. In already numerous and broad literature there are a lot of different definitions and interpretations of the term ‘innovation’. In majority of them the balance point of analyzing this issue is basically put on the identification of various types of innovations, determinants of this phenomenon, both material and immaterial ones, its designates and dimensions, positive and negative effects calculated in a long and short term. The term is associated with modernization, improvement, novelty or an original solution, an idea, a new conception, an invention, a design.

Numerous authors draw attention to the problem with defining the phenomenon of innovativeness. They emphasize that the precise definition of terms related to innovation, such as type of innovation, innovation process, innovation system, innovative activity, innovation management, influences the substantive and methodological aspects of investigating this phenomenon, including the subject and the scope of the study, the way of conducting the analysis, interpretation of the results, and finally the innovativeness and effectiveness of enterprises.

In the literature we can find various approaches to investigating the innovation process in an enterprise. Referring to a well-known concept of the innovation process attributed to Joseph Schumpeter, expressing three elements of this process as ‘Invention―Innovation―Imitation’, some authors who deal with this issue indicate the key meaning of a selected element of the process, others emphasize the unity of the process thus divided. Some researchers treat invention as the whole innovation process, whereas others refer innovation to the practical application of a new idea, its market diffusion, they expose the process of the imitation of innovation (Howells 2005 p. 1).

Practitioners having a lot of knowledge about innovation management in an enterprise highlight the meaning of the context of innovation commercialization. Many of them understand and treat innovation as a process of offering new products, processes and experiences to customers on the one hand, and measurable benefits to the firm on the other hand.Footnote 1

The most numerous group is made of authors who understand innovation as activities related to the creation of an idea and its commercialization, in other words—they include in their research both the process of invention, innovation and the process of implementation of invention, they indicate its material and immaterial character. In this stream there are definitions of innovation developed by well-known authors, such as: Joseph Schumpeter, Peter F. Drucker, Michael E. Porter, Philip Kotler, Ricky W. Griffin or Oslo Manual.Footnote 2

A considerably smaller number of researchers emphasize that innovation in its essence is immaterial, it constitutes its new element, object, project based on knowledge and creativity. Such a point of view is represented by, among others: Simon Kuznets, Percy Whitfield, Robert E. Lucas, Everett M. Rogers.Footnote 3

In the content of the definitions given we can distinguish at least three approaches to the description of the essence of innovation. The article adopts two approaches: the narrow and the broad one.

In the narrow approach innovation is a cognitive process of creating and developing ideas, concepts, projects―basing on knowledge and creativity―which are called novelty, a new element by the creator or recipient, the target group. Innovation (creativity) in this approach can be identified through the evaluation of the expected results, or the evaluation of the quality of innovative projects. In this sense, innovation refers to every object which takes the immaterial form, e.g. an idea, a new method, an innovative design. Creativity is understood here as the quality of an object (concept, project) and not the trait of the man, the creator. (Bartol and Martin 1991, p. 281).

In the broad approach, innovation is any, in principle beneficial, creative and original change in various areas of an organization’s activity, bringing novelty and progress in comparison with the existing state assessed positively in the light of the effectiveness criteria of a given organization (Kozioł et al. 2017).

3 The Unity of the Divided Process

The presented definitions have been developed and expanded in numerous models of the innovation process, concepts of innovativeness system presented in literature or in developed models of the innovative activity of enterprises. Examples of selected solutions concerning innovativeness of enterprises are presented in subsequent Figs. 2 and 3.

Fig. 2
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Source Author’s own elaboration based on: Tidd and Bessant 2013, p. 89

The progression of innovation process.

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Fig. 3
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Source Author’s own elaboration based on: Trías de Bes and Kotler 2013, pp. XV–XVII

Complete innovativeness process.

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The model of progression of innovation process is the development and expansion of Schumpeter’s innovation process system, particularly in the diffusion (dissemination) part of innovation. The components of this part (stages of the process) as a result of mutual influences are a coherent wholeness. However, a complex, difficult stage of the process of invention of innovation which was called ‘an idea’ was presented very briefly, without an attempt of its operationalization. What is more, the stage (sub-stage) of the evaluation of the innovative project in the pre-implementation stage is also missing.

Presented above innovativeness system includes two subsystems: innovation process in the traditional, classical approach and the innovation management process. It emphasizes the significance of strategy and strategic planning, monitoring and operating control, motivation for innovative activities and organizational culture constituting the context of the system (Fig. 3). Inclusion of innovative activity in the implementation of strategic goals of an organization is really justified, however, innovativeness with regard to operating effectiveness, important from the point of view of productivity and competitiveness of an organization, should not be limited.

According to the authors of the innovation process model comprising six types of integrated activities (steps), the reason for limiting innovativeness, already at the beginning of the process, is the type of managers’ activities. They mainly concentrate on solving current problems, they attach less importance to finding opportunities for its development, especially ideas, innovative projects increasing competitiveness. Presentation of the proposals of an innovative process solution with the provision of the plan of its implementation decreases the resistance of various groups of interest to innovation and improves its completion. Detailed proposals included in the model aim at improving the innovation process as a whole. However, they do not contain internally coherent parts of the innovation process that could be successfully implemented in practice.

The extension of the innovation process which goes further is presented by Pauric McGowan (1997) and Amabile (1983). Twelve stages of this process create the algorithm of the procedure similar to the decision making process model, more broadly to solving problems in an organization. The proposed procedure may also turn out to be not useful in the innovation management process in an organization. The described process models are insufficient to increase the implementation effectiveness of innovations.

The quoted definitions of innovation and other notions and terms with respect to the innovativeness of an organization according to their authors are understood as systems, objects, whose components, as a result of mutual influences, constitute a coherent wholeness. A general principle for the presented research attitude is the paradigm of uniting various activities (stages) within the innovation process and establishing the evaluation of an innovative project at the stage of its choice and commercialization. It is assumed that the subject of implemented undertakings is not a particular stage of the innovation process but all the activities related to it.

4 Dichotomy of the Innovation Process―An Outline of the Concept

The innovation process, regardless of the character and type of innovation and the way of its emergence, includes two stages, two autonomous processes:

The process of innovation invention, consisting of the stage of creating the first concept, a draft concept (an innovative project concept emerges),Footnote 4 the stage of the materializing the idea (parametrization of the innovativeness process), and of the stage of idea evaluation (the evaluation of innovative project in pre-diffusion stage). The ex-ante evaluation of innovative project is performed, among others, in the context of the project feasibility, and then its functionality and effectiveness.

The process of innovation implementation, comprising the stage of the concept selection, namely the innovative project and implementation method, that is the control over the implementation of the innovative project function and the stage of discounting value from the implemented idea, namely the interception of value from the innovative project (see Fig. 4).

Fig. 4
figure 4

Source Author’s own elaboration

Two-dimensional progression of innovation process.

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An innovative project in the stage of the process of innovation implementation differs significantly from the project emerged in the stage of innovation imitation. In particular, they differ in identification of problems and defining goals, the approach to creating and using ideas (innovation), the level of use of the possessed resources and designing technologies, competences of designers, the level of risk, time and budget for implementation, or the project business value.

Innovation invention projects have vaguely defined goals and the ways of their implementation. It sometimes happens that they are implemented according to the principle that the solution is known but the goal and the application of the project are not defined precisely. The budget is not specified and the time of the project is not defined, and the predicted benefits are uncertain. This type of projects occur unexpectedly and they are an opportunity for an enterprise (Kelley and Littman 2009, p. 3), they are an innovation that takes on an intangible form (see the definition of innovation in a narrow sense).

On the other hand, the goals of innovation implementation projects most often arise from the strategy of an enterprise. Their financial budget, the time of implementation and, which is the most important, the business value are defined relatively precisely. In their essence, projects of implementation (commercialization) of innovation are similar to the class of agile projects (Agile Project Management), which are in the range between standard, and extreme projects are implemented according to the plan (Wysocki 2013, p. 390; Kozioł and Ćwiertniak, 2018, p. 186). They usually take on a material form, less often intangible (see the definition of innovations in a broad sense). In short, in the innovation inventiveness process unique skills of the creators and motivation of the researcher’s learning and achievements are indispensable, while in the process of innovation implementation these requirements relate to managerial abilities and skills, material motivation and promotion.

The differentiation between both types of projects also concerns the competences of designers. In an innovation invention project creativity and talent as well as divergent thinking are of key significance, whereas in an implementation of innovation project these are entrepreneurship and competences with regard to innovative project management or convergent thinking.

In such an approach entrepreneurship is understood as recognition, evaluation, refining and use of an innovative project.

As it was mentioned, in this stage it is necessary to perform the evaluation of the innovative project with particular consideration to the limitation of the project feasibility, the situation of the organization, the level of its functionality and effectiveness in the short and long term.Footnote 5

The commercialization of an innovative project requires competences in project management, the use of modern (agile) management methods so that one could implement subsequent stages of this process.

Among numerous attributes of a creative idea (innovative project) preferred by managers and entrepreneurs the following are mentioned: the achievement of competitive advantage, the inception of value from innovation, the adjustment to the existing business model, as well as originality and flexibility, namely the possibility to refine and develop the idea (Gruber et al. 2015, pp. 205–225). M. Holmes, T. R. Holcomb, P. G. Klein, R. D. Ireland presented the sequential model of judgments made by entrepreneurs, which considers four criteria (Holmes et al. 2013): ideation, profitability, desirability and activity. The model explains how an entrepreneur evaluates the project, starting with evaluation of a creative idea and ending in evaluation of the venture implementation.

As it can be observed, the determinants of both the processes and research instruments are considerably different. Also the competences of the designers and the products of their work are dissimilar. In the process of invention of innovation it is a unique idea communicated to the firm in which it emerged or the environment of the organization. Implemented in the process of the implementation of innovation, it creates value for the project buyer, it becomes his intellectual property. In fact, at least two innovative projects are being created (two innovations) that can be implemented in a different place and time.

Scientific and research institutes, universities, authors of software, planning and design companies, advertizing agencies, or R&D units functioning in corporations, and even single positions of authors constitute the creative industry with high dynamics of creating (producing) innovative projects. Offered within the industry or outside it they bring benefits to project authors.

In its innovation strategy an enterprise can choose a broad range of innovative activity, including both the process of invention of innovation and the process of the implementation of innovation. However, it requires the extension of innovation potential and ability,Footnote 6 necessary for implementation of both processes and their fragments at the same time. High costs and high risk of the venture are the reason for which only few organizations can afford it due to financial reasons, material resources, competences and others.

The majority of enterprises, especially those which belong to small and medium-sized enterprises assume in their strategy the development of innovation ability in the area of implementation of innovation. An innovative organization of this type has the capability of identifying and taking over innovative projects, ideas from its environment, adjusting and developing a project, commercializing and incepting value from innovation. It has resources and capabilities to discover and make use of opportunities to develop new products and processes in order to meet market needs (Hogan et al. 2011).

Some enterprises implementing innovation also attempt to get involved in the process of creating innovation, especially those which function in the innovative environment. They create alliances of knowledge, networks of inventions (Tödtling et al. 2009), bases of knowledge, various forms of knowledge exchange, for example ‘Edu-Time’, undertake cooperation in innovation creation (co-innovation) (Bonney 2012). The last of the mentioned activities, co-innovation, consists in joined creation of innovation to build common values and increase the level of competitiveness. The basis, the creative determinant of co-innovation is the use of IT instruments, particularly e-learning. These instruments, in an significant and purposeful manner, stimulate the flow of knowledge between the concerned entities. They can take on other organizational forms, for example they can be a set of independent, in the legal sense, business units, implementing various projects and projects coordinated by a company—an integrator which has distinctive, unique competences.

In this process, the so-called management pragmatics is particularly useful. According to interviewees—i.e. managers—Polish enterprises are developing innovative activities, introducing beneficial changes within the stage (stages) of the innovation process, using for this purpose external sources of knowledge, experience of international enterprises in particular.

5 Identification of Innovations Implemented in Tourism Enterprises—Case Study

The aim of the analysis presented in this part of the article is to evaluate the innovative activity of enterprises, with particular attention to the number and type of introduced innovations. In the course of the analytical work, cooperation was established within three hotels and three travel agencies. The results of these analyses are presented in Table 1, where are presented the characteristics of enterprises, while Table 2 describes their innovative activity.

Table 1 General characteristics of the enterprises
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Table 2 Innovative activity of enterprises
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With the reference to numerous classifications of innovations the Oslo Manual Methodology was chosen as it distinguishes product, process, organizational and marketing innovations.

In the period covered by the study, i.e. in the years 2015–2017, four marketing innovations, three process innovations and three product innovations were implemented in enterprises. In particular, they concerned: creation of the key clients databases, development and implementation of a new way of promoting and advertising foreign tourist trips, the use of social media in marketing activities, experimental implementation of a flat organizational structure limiting the number of organizational units and posts, creation of the trade fair and congress industry as a new form of tourism product, creation and promotion.

As can be noticed, mainly innovations in the product, marketing and organizational process, were dominating, improving, imitating, being a part of the classic innovation process, bringing measurable benefits to the analyzed companies and their customers.

6 Final Remarks and Conclusions

The main conclusion that can be drawn from the conducted analysis is that from the perspective of time some of the authors’ views and presented models have become obsolete. The presented theory of innovation and so-called ‘innovation triad’ as the description of the process from invention through innovation to imitation—the process presented at a high level of generality, homogeneity, low disjunctiveness, treated as a field of analysis, the subject of the research of numerous authors. It appeared, however, that an attempt to invent and apply innovation often ends in failure since we still cannot explain what premises, cultural and economic stimuli, the way of implementation of innovative projects, reactions of the markets generate changes conditioning the diffusion of a new product or service.

We cannot recognize the tools of analysis and define the determinants of innovation process in the comprehensive Schumpeterian approach, but we can resolve it by studying each of these processes separately. Therefore, we can discuss the aggregate (holistic) approach to the innovation process as well as partial approach towards it, which constitutes the fragment of the innovation process. Both processes were presented in the concept of innovation process and in the practice of innovative activity of the analyzed hotels and travel agencies. Management pragmatics is a factor supporting innovation process. Organizations lacking sufficient resources did not invest in the sphere of research and development (basic, applied development works), but instead they tried to use external sources of knowledge, where the costs of innovative projects and the risk of failure are much smaller than in the case of conducting own research.

It is in the strategy of an organization that the object and the scope of the analysis must be defined, considering the level of innovation ability of an enterprise, in the creative industry they can specialize in creating ideas, designing novelties and offering innovative projects to properly selected target group. Traditional firms should develop these projects and implement them in practice with benefits for their customers.

As we can observe, the choice of the object and the scope of innovative activity determine innovation ability of an organization, the ability to manage innovative projects and the use of modern (agile) management methods, as well as innovation policy supported by management pragmatics.