Sustainability, Vol. 12, Pages 2519: Do Human Resources and the Research System Affect Firms` Innovation Activities? Results from Poland and the Czech Republic (Sustainability)

Strong relationships between innovation of firms and sustainable development of regions and countries have priority in issues related to firms’ innovation performance. In this paper, particular emphasis is given to Poland and the Czech Republic as countries with similar innovation performance. Specifically, it seems interesting to identify the extent to which human resources and the research system in these countries matter in firms’ innovation activities. Thus, the aim of the paper is to test whether human resources and the research system affect Polish and Czech firms’ innovation activities. The data were sourced from the European Innovation Scoreboard (2018, 2019) for the period of 2010–2016. A set of variables concerning human resources and the research system were employed. The hypotheses were tested with the Cobb–Douglas function. This paper contributes to the existing literature by adding to studies that seek to identify determinants of firms’ innovation activities. The findings indicate the statistical significance of such a variable related with human resources, as lifelong learning for innovation activities of firms from Poland and such a variable connected with the research system, as the top 10% most cited publications on Czech firms’ innovation activities. The paper has practical and policy implications. There is a need, among others, to strengthen knowledge diffusion processes between firms and universities, research organisations, and institutional environments in order to improve innovation activities of firms.