Managing innovation processes in industrial sector. Qualitative study

The aim of this paper was to confirm the conceptual representation of innovation process by raising two interrelated questions: what is the impact of interactions on company innovation performance, and what is the relation between the design of innovation processes and company innovation performance? The aim was achieved through in-depth literature studies using the Salsa method and empirical study relying on the semi-structured interviews carried out with 24 respondents from Central and Eastern European companies. The paper presents a six-stage innovation process and the link between the design of the process, interactions within the process and innovation performance. The research suggested that designing the process to assure pre-preparation, reproducibility, information sharing, control together with managing outcome, resource interactions, external cooperation are essential from the innovation performance viewpoint. In most of the studied companies active innovation managing process was noted. The interviewees pointed out routines, formalised procedures, information sharing, transparency, reproducibility, and traceability as the key elements of improved innovation performance. Also, the role of resources interactions, benefit interactions and outcome interactions appearing at different stages of innovation process was discussed. The paper attempts to fulfil the research gap concerning the role of interactions and design of innovation process in increasing its efficiency.