INNOVATION BARRIERS AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS OF ENTERPRISES FROM POLISH FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRY : RESEARCH RESULTS

Innovativeness is crucial in building competitive advantage of fi rms. Enterprises are facing many innovation barriers that distort innovation performance. The aim of the paper is to assess the influence of innovation barriers on the innovation performance as well as international competitiveness of firms from Polish food processing industry. The analysis is conducted on the representative sample of 1216 medium and large enterprises (NACE Rev. 2, C 10) participating in the survey GUS PNT-02/CIS for the years 2008-2010. The results showa statistically significant relations between innovation barriers and both innovation performance and international competitiveness of surveyed fi rms. Various advanced statistical methods were used in order to verify research hypotheses. The results of the study reveal complexity of interactions between analysed variables, leading to the conclusion that innovation process cannot be reduced to linear relationships only.