Coopetition as the Factor of Increasing Level of Innovativeness in the SME Sector in Poland

Abstract

Companies in Poland can realize their goals by assuring the necessary organizational conditions and by partially restricting opportunistic behavior within the limits sufficient to take stable coopetitive actions. In the face of the present financial crisis, innovativeness is one of the basic parameters in evaluation of the SME sector in Poland. The goal of the present article is to show that enhanced coopetition of the researched entities with huge holdings or concerns from Poland and with economic entities from the remaining countries of the European Union is a sine qua non of improving the level of innovativeness in the SME sector. The coopetition is defined as a phenomenon of simultaneous cooperation and competition of at least two entities, the aim of which is to better realize their goals or to work towards the common end. If levels of competition and cooperation are low, companies assume the strategies of the owners of micro-, small- or medium-sized enterprises. Being a condition necessary to improve the level of innovativeness in the Polish SME sector, coopetition is characteristic of the companies whose activities are narrowly specialized.