Business strategies, bureaucratic ties, and firms’ innovation novelty: insights from the World Bank enterprise survey

We draw intuitions from the systemic perspective of innovation to develop and test a conceptual model aimed at examining the various factors capable of influencing the novelty of innovations within firms in Visegrad countries. The empirical results based on the analyses of about 2,132 firms revealed that organisational strategies, external collaborations, engaging in research and development, and the legal status of firms marginally influence innovation novelties. Contrary to our expectations, we found that intellectual property rights and bureaucratic ties do not significantly influence innovation novelties. Business cities are also positively correlated with firms’ innovation novelties whilst legal status is not. The main practical implication of the research is that firm managers in the Visegrad Group aiming to improve and sustain the novelty of innovations should consider strengthening their external collaborations as well as having business strategies that must include innovations as well as research and development (R&D). We discuss some implications for theory and policy.