The strategic goal of every enterprise, both industrial and service, is to systematically introduce new products and services to the market or improve already manufactured products. Achieving such a goal may lead to the more rapid meeting of changing customer needs compared to competitors and the shaping of new needs in a competitive way, conducive to acquiring the economic value necessary for the further functioning and development of business entities (Ri, Wang & Zhan 2018, p. 38; Dieter & Schmitt, 2018, p. 64). One of the basic conditions for achieving this goal is the ability of management to acquire, deploy, update and use the resources necessary for the efficient design of new products that would arouse the interest of buyers (Areri, Kipchumba & Kamau, 2020, p. 48). We can talk about material, energy, financial, human resources (employees), information, knowledge, and so on. Rational use of such resources requires their proper organization in a static and dynamic sense, and efficient resource management, resulting in the design of new products or services arising in the pre-production sphere (see Figure 1).

New or improved designs for products/services are transferred to the production sphere, where they become materialized in manufacturing (operational) processes. The resulting products (innovations), through the post-production sphere, reach the market to provide customers with the expected value. In return, the company acquires economic value, information and knowledge from its customers (Peng, Lawrence & Koo, 2009, pp. 146–147). Management according to such a model is focused on the systemic link between research and development (R&D) activities and marketing research (Szopik-Depczyńska, 2018).

As can be seen from the model above, the management process covers all spheres that make up the company’s activity (Arandah, 2021, p. 47). One of these is the pre-production sphere, which fulfills the very important function of creating knowledge and processing it into specific projects for products or services (innovations) satisfying the current and future needs of real and potential customers (Emilyokwemba, 2018, pp. 16, 20; Kelemu, 2019, p. 35). Therefore, the systematic acquisition of information and knowledge from customers, combined with information and internal knowledge, can facilitate the creation of successful projects on the one hand, and on the other shape an environment conducive to interaction between customers and the company, resulting in the co-creation of the expected value in accordance with the principle: new knowledge enables the creation of new value (Baruk, 2017, pp. 20–28; Jasiński, 2020, p. 5).

The key elements of the co-creation process are as follows (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2005, pp. 31–39):

1) Dialog leading to loyal cooperation between customers and the company and its maintenance. Dialog inspires the sharing of information and knowledge, and shapes a new quality of mutual understanding and trust between enterprises and customers, as well as facilitating the introduction of the personal views of customers on the essence of value into the process of co-creation of value. Consequently, it leads to customer satisfaction, which is a key indicator of the level of customer service (Shete, 2021, p. 34);

2) Access to data, information, experiences, and services creates new opportunities for cooperation in new or existing markets, gives grounds to change the existing belief that only ownership allows customers to use value (offering customers access to new forms of services);

3) Risk assessment to ensure that customers have full access to information on the risks and benefits of engaging in the value co-creation process, facilitating trade-offs between risks and benefits. If customers are to be cocreators of value, they should be provided with more information about the potential dangers that may arise in the products and services they design, which requires greater customer responsibility for these risks;

4) Transparency resulting from the increasing availability of information about the products, indicators and operating systems of enterprises. Transparency of activities and market transactions promotes the growth of customer involvement in the co-creation of value, enables the establishment of a dialog with customers leading to the initiation or deepening of cooperation and leads to the formation of strong trust between customers and enterprises.

The role of managers of enterprises focused on co-creating value as part of R&D activities is to rationally shape the aforementioned components of value co-creation and give them the character of system solutions (Kolomiiets, Krzyżanowska & Mazurek, 2018, p. 31). This is a difficult task, requiring mental changes, new management knowledge, social innovation, the ability to shape rational policies (research and development, innovative, production, marketing, social), strategic thinking, the abandonment of traditional thinking from the perspective of the enterprise in favor of strategic, innovative thinking from the perspective of customers and new incentive instruments, etc. (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2005, pp. 45–48; Janasz & Kozioł, 2007, p. 81). The introduction of the concept of cocreation of value at the research and development (R&D) stage requires management to innovate in management, which helps to alleviate the tensions between the company and customers, manifested at the points of interaction (Heij, Volberda, Van den Bosch & Hollen, 2020, p. 278; Barbieri & Alvares, 2016, pp. 122–124).

The development of R&D activities in enterprises requires specific financial outlays, which are an instrument of R&D and innovation policy. Meanwhile, the lack or shortage of financial resources is one of the basic barriers to the dynamic development of R&D and innovation activities in enterprises, which translates into limiting or omitting this issue in decision-making processes (Matejun, 2015, p. 40; Jasiński, 2005, p. 39; Poznańska, 2017, p. 199; IDEA Institute, 2021, p. 112).

This article is organized based on the following concept: the implementation of each function in the enterprise requires incurring certain expenditures. One of such functions is the function of R&D activity. It is a source of knowledge materialized in innovation. Decisions on the amount of expenditure on R&D are made by the company’s management. These decisions result from a specific R&D policy, which is why the level, dynamics and structure of actual expenditures incurred reflect the quality of R&D policy.

The following measures were used to analyse the level, dynamics and structure of R&D expenditures: 1) the amount of gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD); 2) the share of gross domestic expenditure on R&D in gross domestic product (GDP); 3) the number of entities conducting R&D activities; 4) the number of research employees per 1,000 employees; 5) the sum of internal expenditure on R&D activities in total, by executive sectors, by number of employees in enterprises, by ownership sector and by type of R&D activity.

Research problem: The essence of the research problem is therefore contained in the following questions: 1) what is the level of financing of R&D activities in Poland and in Polish enterprises? 2) what are the dynamics of R&D expenditures? 3) what is the structure of these expenditures in terms of the type of research, the size of enterprises and the ownership sector?

Undoubtedly, these are basic and current issues in academic considerations on the identification of enterprise policy in the field of finansing R&D activities. The results may be the basis for changing this policy and directing it towards increasing the rationality of R&D management, treated as sources of knowledge for innovative activities. The importance of this research problem is particularly great in the light of the relatively low percentage of enterprises conducting R&D activities. According to research conducted in 2016 by Kantar Millward Brown, only 40% of Polish enterprises conducted R&D activities. This percentage rose to 55% in 2018 (Ayming Report, 2018, p. 16). In a similar study from October 2016, it was found that 60% of the surveyed companies in Poland did not conduct R&D activities. R&D activity was declared by only 16% of small companies, 50% of medium-sized companies and 64% of large companies (Ayming Report 2016, pp. 5, 17).

Purpose: The purpose of the publication is to identify the level, dynamics and structure of expenditures on R&D activities in Poland and in Polish enterprises. These parameters define the nature of the R&D policy pursued by managerial staff. At the same time, they form the basis for proposing improvements (in the form of model solutions) in this area.

Research methods: The following research methods were used to develop this paper: a cognitive-critical analysis of the literature to identify the research problem; the descriptive and comparative method for the presentation of the problem; the statistical method for calculating percentages of the level, dynamics and structure of R&D expenditures; and the projection method for proposing model solutions.

Results: The level of measures of R&D activity analyzed indicates that the enterprise sector played a leading role in the sectoral system. The priority for this sector was development work in all the cross-sections considered. The lowest expenditures were spent on basic research. Compared to the average results in the European Union, Poland and Polish enterprises achieved lower indicators in terms of finansing R&D activities. The relatively low level and diversified nature of the measures in the period under investigation indicates relatively low R&D activity among enterprises. One of the reasons for this is the random and ad hoc nature of R&D policy, which is aimed more at solving current problems.

Practical implications: Becoming aware of the real results in terms of R&D expenditure may serve as the basis for rationalising R&D policy and giving it a strategic dimension. The use of the proposed model solutions in this policy may lead to an increase in this rationality, and thus an increase in the integration of R&D work with innovative activities and the market. The consequence may be an improvement in the competitive position of enterprises, their economics and customer relations.

Social implications: Rationalization and strategic orientation of R&D management is conducive to the socialization of R&D processes, and the inclusion of the company’s own employees, institutional and individual clients in this activity. Because of changes in management and R&D policy, healthy relations between the company and individuals and institutions in the environment may be formed, as well as the willingness of employees to learn and share knowledge.

Originality: This article makes an empirical contribution in terms of the level, dynamics and structure of R&D expenditures in Poland and in the enterprise sector. It also makes a conceptual contribution in the form of organizing knowledge on the essence of R&D activity, R&D policy and model solutions facilitating the management of the R&D sphere and its integration with production and post-production activities. Scope of the study: The time range of the research covers the years 2015–2019 (or 2017–2019 in the case of the analysis of the enterprise sector). The scope concerns the financial aspects of R&D activity on a national scale and in the Polish enterprise sector. The scope of the survey covers the country and the enterprise sector that complete the annual PNT reports on R&D activities and send them to the Central Statistical Office (GUS), where aggregate results are prepared, edited in publications entitled „Science and technology in the years of…” and „Research and development activities in Poland in the years…”. It is the data contained in these studies that constitute the basic source of analysis of R&D expenditures.

The essence of R&D activity and R&D policy

R&D activity has become an integral part of modern economies, treated as a source of knowledge necessary for the dynamic and systemic pursuit of innovative activities, conditioning the increase in the competitiveness of enterprises and their ability to co-create value for customers (Jasiński, A.H. 2020, p. 6; Mate & Molero, 2021, p. 2; Kelemu, 2019, p. 36). R&D activities consist of creative work carried out in a methodical manner to acquire new knowledge resources — especially knowledge about humanity, culture and society — as well as to search for new applications for knowledge hitherto gained. This activity is aimed at new discoveries based on original concepts and their interpretations or hypotheses. Its aim is to achieve results that would be freely transferable and tradeable on the market (GUS, 2018b, p. 47; OECD, 2015, p. 44). R&D activity may be characterized by: innovativeness, creativity, unpredictability, methodicality, possibility of reproduction or transfer (GUS, 2018b, p. 47; OECD, 2015, p. 45).

R&D activities include the following three sets of activities (Witness, 2021, p. 89):

1) basic research, which is experimental or theoretical work carried out with a view to acquiring new knowledge about specific phenomena governing nature and specific facts without indicating specific applications;

2) applied research, also undertaken to acquire new knowledge but focused on a specific practical goal or intention. The results of such research are usually trial models of products, processes or methods;

3) development work, which is is methodically carried out activity based on knowledge obtained as a result of basic and applied research, practical experience and generating additional knowledge aimed at the production of new products or processes, or at improving already manufactured products and processes, including the preparation of prototypes or pilot installations. Usually, development work includes construction, structural, design-technological and experimental work (Baruk, 2014, p. 57).

R&D activities are carried out by organizations and cooperating natural persons whose work is creative and is undertaken in order to increase knowledge resources, as well as to create new possibilities for its application. In particular, the contractors of R&D work are statistical units established to conduct R&D activities in the following sectors (GUS, 2018b, p422; OECD, 2015, p. 98): enterprises, government, higher education and private non-commercial institutions. Innovation is a manifestation of such successful work. It should be realized that the development of innovations that can have a radical impact on the development of a company, increase its competitiveness, and increase the ability to originally meet the current and future needs of individual customers requires the generation of new knowledge. It is therefore necessary to conduct a rational R&D policy including: 1) organizing their own sphere of R&D, 2) systemic use of external knowledge arising in scientific and research organizations, in other enterprises, 3) acquiring knowledge and experience of individual customers or joint use of internal and external knowledge acquired as part of systemic cooperation or purchasing, 4) systemic shaping of the culture of learning and sharing knowledge, 5) creating an environment of experience, creating structural and process conditions for generating knowledge and materializing it in innovations, etc. (see Figure 2).

Since enterprises operate and develop in a dynamic environment, it becomes a natural necessity to systematically renew the resources of internal and external knowledge, multiply it, store it, as well as sharing silent knowledge and transforming it into knowledge commonly available to enterprises (Swaty & Kumar, 2021, p. 56; Probst, Raub & Romhardt, 2004, p. 143). The role of management is therefore to create a climate and culture conducive to creative behavior (social innovations), to organize teamwork integrating all categories of knowledge, experience, thinking styles, to stimulate knowledge employees to reveal it, share it with other people, etc. (Suvaci, 2018, p. 4). We should be aware that innovative activity is based on various categories of knowledge: technological, organizational, market, commercial, economic, managerial, social and methodological knowledge.

Skilful management of knowledge, i.e., its creation, acquisition, storage, processing, distribution, transformation (from hidden knowledge to available knowledge) and use, is becoming increasingly more important in today’s conditions of enterprise functioning than the mere transformation of raw materials into finished products in accordance with known manufacturing technologies and supplying customers with them. Particular attention should be paid to the creation of the company competences, i.e., those areas of knowledge that are (Baruk, 2007, p. 140):

1) key competences, determining the identity of the company, dynamizing its market position. An example of this type of competence is R&D. Key competences can be shaped through the implementation of social innovations, rational HR policy, employment, training, learning, knowledge management, rationally organized R&D and innovation activities and cooperation policy with scientific and research organizations,

2) unique competences, constituting the basis for the company to achieve an advantage over competitors in terms of originality, modernity, quality and compliance with customer expectations of all technical, technological, organizational and managerial solutions. This requires activity by management staff in the field of rational management of R&D work, hiring researchers and specialists from various scientific disciplines, providing them with significant freedom to choose research directions, unlimited contact with customers, innovative experience environment, etc.

In the processes of systemic creation of knowledge and its materialization in innovation, it is necessary to convince managers that: 1) the diffusion of knowledge through the innovation system is a key element in the effectiveness of any innovation process, which is why it should be rationally managed, 2) systematic expansion of the knowledge base in enterprises through organized R&D activities, cooperation with external entities and individual customers or acquisition of new knowledge through purchases, becoming a necessity today, 3) the most important role in R&D activities and innovation processes is played by people of knowledge, which is why they should be rationally managed, conditions for learning should be created, employees should be encouraged to share knowledge, as part of a systemic R&D and innovation policy (Janasz & Kozioł, 2007, pp. 78–79).

The term R&D policy and innovative enterprise should be understood as a specific set of managerial, economic, social, organizational, financial and technical decisions leading to the integration of science — technology — production — distribution, focused on the systemic acquisition of external and internal knowledge, materialized in innovations providing customers with the expected value faster than competitors. In other words, R&D policy and innovation policy are a series of rational decisions and actions resulting in the organization of efficient structures (in a static and dynamic sense), stimulating research resulting in the generation of knowledge, indicating ways to materialize it in product and business process innovations, solving an enterprises technological and financial problems, as well as satisfying individual and the institutional needs of customers (Baruk, 2020, p. 7). These policies include the creation of R&D and innovation objectives, as well as the selection of means and methods to achieve these goals (Janasz & Kozioł, 2007, p. 96). Primarily, this is about the economic, social, organizational, human resources, and financial solutions necessary for the efficient course of research work (acquiring knowledge, indicating the possibilities of its application) and development, as well as innovation creation processes.

Undoubtedly, rational answers to the following questions can facilitate the creation of an R&D policy for an enterprise: 1) what problems (internal, market) the company may encounter in the short, medium and long terms? 2) what innovations can be conducive to solving these problems? 3) what knowledge is necessary or will be required to generate innovation and solve these problems? 4) from what sources (internal, external, mixed) should this knowledge be acquired? 5) what material, financial and human resources will determine the smooth course of R&D and innovation processes? 6) what role can and should individual customers play in these processes? 7) what organizational (structural and process), technical and social changes should be introduced to ensure high efficiency of R&D and innovative processes? In general, R&D and innovation policies should be based on the following mechanism (see Figure 3):

When above considerations are compared to economic practice, two questions arise: 1) what are the level and dynamics of expenditures on R&D activity in Poland, treated as an instrument of R&D policy? 2) what are the level and dynamics of expenditures on R&D activity in the Polish enterprise sector, treated as an instrument of R&D policy?

Possible answers to these questions are presented in the following sections of the article.

Expenditures on R&D activities in Poland in 2015–2019

R&D activities require specific financial outlays. One of the basic measures of this activity is gross domestic inputs (GERD index). They constitute the amount of total internal expenditures on R&D activities carried out on the territory of a given country in the indicated reporting period (GUS, 2020a:19). The level of these expenditures in the years 2015–2019 is presented in Table 1. In 2015, they amounted to PLN 18.1 billion. In the following year, a decrease in this metric by 0.7% was recorded. In the following years, these expenditures increased compared to 2015 by 13.9% in 2017, by 42.0% in 2018 and by 67.7% in 2019, respectively, which should be considered a positive phenomenon, even after accounting for the inflation rate.

The ratio of gross domestic inputs to gross domestic product (GDP) was also used to analyse the dynamics of R&D activity. In the period analyzed, this indicator was characterized by a slight increase, except for 2016, when this ratio was 0.96%. In subsequent years, this rate exceeded 1% and in 2019 it amounted to 1.32%.

The universality of R&D activity may be measured by the number of entities that engage in it. In 2015, there were 4,427 such entities. Compared to 2015, their number increased by 444 in 2016, by 675 in 2017, by 1,352 in 2017 and by 1,436 in 2019. As in any job, people with appropriate professional training must also be involved in R&D activities. In this activity, one of the most important groups of employees are scientific and research workers. In the analyzed period, there was an average of from 5.1 research workers per 1,000 employees in 2015 up to 6.1 in 2019. Year on year, this measure slightly but successively increased by 0.5 in 2016 and in 2017, by 0.1 in 2018 and 2019.

Involvement in R&D activities can also be assessed on the basis of the internal expenditures, defined as all current expenditures and gross capital expenditures on fixed assets related to R&D activities, carried out in the entity (GUS, 2020a, p. 19). In total, these expenditures increased from PLN 18.1 billion in 2015 to PLN 30.3 billion in 2019. The exception was 2016, when compared to 2015, the sum of these expenditures decreased by PLN 118 million.

The basic classification used in the analysis of data on R&D activities is the classification of institutional sectors developed by the OECD, including: the corporate sector, the government sector, the higher education sector, the sector of private non-commercial institutions and abroad. According to the classification of executive sectors, entities conducting research and development activities are divided into four categories: the enterprise sector, the government sector, the higher education sector and the sector of private non-commercial institutions (GUS, 2020a , pp. 25–26).

As shown in Table 1, during the period considered, the largest expenditure on R&D was incurred by companies. In 2015, they amounted to PLN 8.4 billion, which accounted for 46.6% of gross domestic expenditures on R&D activities. Year on year, expenditures on R&D in enterprises increased by PLN 3.4 billion in 2016, by PLN 1.5 billion in 2017, by PLN 3.7 billion in 2018 and by PLN 2.1 billion in 2019. In the last year, enterprises spent PLN 19 billion on R&D activities. This amount represented 62.8% of gross domestic expenditure for this purpose. In other years, this indicator was: 65.7% in 2016, 64.5% in 2017, and 66.1% in 2018. In other executive sectors, these shares were: 1) in the government sector: 24.4% in 2015, 2.5% in 2016, 2.3% in 2017, 1.9% in 2018, and 1.3% in 2019; 2) in the higher education sector: 28.9% in 2015, 31.4% in 2016, 32.9% in 2017, 31.7% in 2018 and 35.6% in 2019; 3) in the sector of private non-profit institutions: 0.2% in 2015, 0.4% in 2016, 0.3% in 2017, 0.3% in 2018 and 0.3% in 2019.

The level of the measures of R&D activity above in individual executive sectors indicates the leading role of the enterprise sector. This sector was characterized by the highest internal expenditures on R&D, growing in successive years, and the largest share of these expenditures in gross domestic expenditures. This was followed by the ministries of higher education, government and private non-profit institutions. The latter sector was characterized by a marginal involvement in financing R&D activities.

Expenditures on R&D activities in the sector of Polish enterprises in 2017–2019

Since the enterprise sector was characterized by the greatest involvement in R&D activities, it is worth analyzing the development of internal expenditures in this sector depending on the size of enterprises and their sectoral affiliation. The development of this indicator in 2017–2019 is presented in Table 2.

The analysis of internal expenditures incurred on R&D indicates an increasing absolute value in all cross-sections, i.e., in total in the country, in total in enterprises and in individual categories of enterprises. Compared to 2017, in 2019 the total amount of these expenditures increased by PLN 9,706.3 million, i.e., by 47.2%. In the corporate sector, this increase was 30.3%. In the case of micro enterprises, expenditures increased by 44.9%, in small enterprises by 45.2%, in medium-sized enterprises by 34.3%, in large enterprises by 30.4%, and in great enterprises — by 52.1%. In private enterprises, an increase in expenditures by 47.5% was recorded, while in public enterprises by 22.7%.

Based on the sum of internal expenditures on R&D activities in 2017–2019, it can be concluded that R&D policy in Poland was first focused on development work, then on basic research and finally on applied research. This conclusion is confirmed not only by the absolute values of expenditures allocated to individual types of R&D activities, but also by the percentage shares of these expenditures in total expenditures. In 2017, these shares were 29% for basic research, 17.6% for applied research and 53.4% for development. In 2018, the ratios were 32.5%, 13.2% and 54.2%, respectively. Finally, in 2019, the share of expenditure on basic research in total expenditures accounted for 40.1%, for applied research — 13.4%, and for development work — 46.5%.

In the corporate sector, the priority for R&D policy was development work, which absorbed the most cash in the period analyzed. In 2017, they accounted for 76.4% of total expenditures. In the case of applied research, this share was 18.9%, and in the case of basic research — 4.6%. In 2018, these relations were at the level of: 11.0% in the case of basic research, 12.9% in the case of applied research, and 76.1% in the case of development work. In the next year of the analysis (2019), expenditures on basic research accounted for 17.5% of total expenditures, in the case of applied research — 14.0%, and 68.5% — in the case of development work. The level of these measures indicates that the priority of R&D policy in enterprises in general was development work, followed by applied research and finally basic research, with the exception of 2019, when the share of expenditure on basic research was slightly higher (by 3.5 percentage points) than on applied research.

Taking into account the size of enterprises expressed in the number of employees, it should be stated that the priority of R&D policy in the period under investigation was development work in all groups of company sizes. This is evidenced by the shares of expenditures on individual types of R&D activities in total expenditures. In the case of micro-enterprises, these shares amounted to: in 2017 for basic research, 8.8%, for applied research 27.8%, and for development work 63.3%. In 2018, these relations were as follows: 21.7% for basic research, 17.4% for applied research and 60.9% for development work. Finally, in 2019, these measures took the following values: 30.3% for basic research, 20.6% for applied research, and 49.1% for development work.

In small enterprises, R&D policy was also focused mainly on finansing development work. In 2017, the share of expenditure on development work in total expenditures was 64.1%, in the case of applied research — 25.6%, and in the case of basic research — 9.8%. In 2018, these indicators reached the following values: 67.4% for development work, 16.6% for applied research and 16.0% for basic research. In 2019, the share of expenditures on development works in total expenditures was 58.8%, in the case of applied research — 17.3%, and in the case of basic research — 23.8%.

Similar phenomena occurred in medium-sized enterprises, where R&D policy focused mainly on development work. This is evidenced by the indicators of the share of expenditures of individual types of research in total expenditures. In 2017, they amounted to: 67.5% for development work, 24.4% for applied research and 8.1% for basic research. The situation was similar in 2018: 71.4% of total expenditure was allocated to development, 16.7% to applied research and 11.8% to basic research. In 2019, these relations were at the level of: 63.0% for development work, 20.7% for basic research and 16.3% for applied research.

A similar structure of expenditure characterized large enterprises, in which in 2017 70.5% of total expenditures were allocated to financing development work, 24.0% to applied research and only 5.5% to basic research. In 2018, the percentages of these expenses were at the level of 71.7% for development work, 18.2% for applied research and 10.0% for basic research. In 2019, the structure of expenditure was similar. The largest amount of funding was allocated to development work — 65.3% of total expenditures, 17.1% to applied research and 17.5% to basic research.

The R&D policy of large enterprises was also dominated by development work. In 2017, 86.0% of total expenditure was allocated to it, with only 12.5% for applied research and 1.4% for basic research. A similar distribution of these indicators took place in 2018, when development work was mainly financed. It accounted for 82.1% of total expenditure, for applied research only 8.5% and for basic research — 9.4% of all funds. In 2019, a similar structure of expenditure was recorded. 74.8% of total expenditures on development work, 11.0% on applied research and 14.1% on basic research.

In general, the R&D policy of the enterprise sector was dominated by development work, to a much lesser extent was it decided to finance basic and applied research. There were years when slightly more money was spent on basic research than on applied research, e.g., 2019 (enterprises in general), 2018 and 2019 in micro-enterprises, 2019 in small, medium, large and great companies, and 2018 in large companies.

The last cross-section of the analysis is the distribution of internal expenditures on R&D in enterprises depending on the sector of their ownership. In both sectors, total expenditures increased in individual years of the analysis. The absolute amount was higher in the private sector by PLN 8.9 billion in 2017, i.e., by 80.2%; by PLN 11.9 billion in 2018, i.e., by 82.6% and by PLN 13.6 billion in 2019, i.e., by 83.5%. In each of these sectors, R&D policy was mainly focused on financing development work. This conclusion is confirmed by the shares of expenditures on individual types of activities in total expenditures. In 2017, the private sector accounted for 81.4% of total investment, for applied research for 15.3% and for basic research for 3.3%. In the following year, the level of the metric was: 79.2% for development work; 9.9% for applied research and 10.8% for basic research. In 2019, it was at the level of: 71.2% for development work, 11.3% for applied research and 17.5% for basic research.

In 2017, public sector enterprises accounted for 51.0% of total expenditure on development, 37.4% on applied research and 11.6% on basic research. In 2018, funds for development work accounted for 57.8% of total expenditure, 30.2% for applied research and 11.9% for basic research. In the last year of the period investigated, i.e., in 2019, 52.0% of the total financial resources were allocated to development work, while 17.4% and 30.6% of the expenditures incurred were allocated to basic and applied research respectively.

Summary

The assessment of the position of the Polish and the business sector in terms of its commitment to R&D finansing will be more objective if the results are compared with those obtained in the European Union (EU). Compared to the average values achieved in the EU, the share of domestic expenditures on R&D in the gross domestic product in Poland was lower by 0.82 p.p. in 2019, 0.9 p.p. in 2018, 1.05 p.p. in 2017, 1.08 p.p. in 2016 and 1.04 p.p. in 2015, in the years 2015–2019, the average value of this indicator in Poland was lower than its average value in the EU by 0.98 p.p.

It should be emphasized that in the enterprise sector, the share of internal expenditures on research and development in gross domestic expenditure on R&D activities in 2019 amounted to 62.8% (with a 66.6% share in the EU) and was much higher than such shares in other sectors: government by 61.5 percentage points, higher education by 27.2 percentage points. and private non-commercial institutions by 62.5 percentage points.

The ratio of internal expenditures on R&D activities to GDP, defined as the intensity of R&D work, in 2019 amounted to 1.32% and was lower than the value of this indicator for the EU by 0.82 p.p., which placed Poland 16th among member states. In 2019, the index increased by 0.11 p.p. compared to 2018 and by 0.32 p.p. compared to 2015 (GUS, 2021, p. 25). Thus, we can talk about the relative backwardness of the Polish and the corporate sector in relation to the EU in terms of the amount of expenditures on R&D and their share in the gross domestic product.

A valuable source of information about R&D policy is indicators of the share of expenditures on individual types of R&D activities. It turns out that in 2017–2019 this policy was focused mainly on finansing development work, to a lesser extent on finansing basic research and to the smallest extent — applied research. Interesting conclusions emerge from the analysis of the measure studied in the cross-section of types of R&D activities and executive sectors. In the analyzed period, the expenditures incurred on development work dominated in all executive sectors, i.e., in micro, small, medium, large and great enterprises, as well as in companies from the private and public sectors. This situation indicates the short-term nature of R&D policy.

The level and dynamics of expenditures on R&D activities in the sector of Polish enterprises indicate that: 1) R&D activity in the analyzed sector was relatively low, as evidenced by relatively low and diversified expenditures on R&D; 2) R&D activity, treated as a source of knowledge for innovative processes, was not a priority in the information and decisionmaking processes of the management of most companies, especially micro and small, as well as in the R&D policy; 3) in the sector of Polish enterprises, R&D policy had a more ad hoc, random character, to a small extent focused on the systemic creation of knowledge and its use in innovative processes; 4) in all cross-sections of the analysis, the real R&D policy of the enterprise sector was clearly focused on finansing development work consuming knowledge. Less importance was attached to the development of basic and applied research, aimed at creating knowledge and searching for the possibility of its practical use as part of development work, 5) R&D policy in the sector of Polish enterprises was more determined by current needs, to a lesser extent by the vision of development and the resulting strategy. This policy was not sufficiently focused on systemic cooperation with national and international organisations leading to rational results in R&D and innovation (Chen et al., 2021, p. 244).

The passive nature of R&D policies in the sector of Polish enterprises may be the result of the following factors:

1) insufficient involvement of company managers in identifying current and future problems (internal and external), the solution of which requires the creation of new knowledge, sharing silent knowledge and transforming it into organizational knowledge;

2) the dominance in management information and decision-making processes of thinking from the perspective of solving the current needs of the company and individual units, an organizational instead of a systemic approach to the implementation of the organization’s development goals through the integration of R&D, marketing and innovative activities. This entails a comprehensive combination of the concepts of research, development, innovative activity and marketing research (R&D+I+M) into one cycle of the research system (Jasiński, 2020, p. 5; Mate & Molero, 2021, p. :2);

3) a prevalence of managers thinking in terms of past successes instead of creating the future based on information systematically obtained from the market, from individual customers and offensive strategies for the development of the organization;

4) low ability and inclination of the management staff to introduce social innovations and innovations in management (Heij et al., 2020, p. 278);

5) limited financial, organizational, social capabilities, technical and managerial enterprises;

6) insufficient capacity and propensity to systematic learning and management of knowledge and innovation according to model indications, especially network models (Baruk, 2021, pp. 14–27);

7) lack of inclination in management to create an innovative experience environment, conducive to employee interaction with individual customers, aimed at co-creating knowledge, innovation and values (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2005, p. 62; Baruk, 2020, p. 5);

8) a relatively low level of organizational culture, limited interest among management in creating an organizational culture aimed at creating knowledge and materializing it in innovation;

9) an excessive preference for traditional organizational solutions and favoring them to the creation of changes based on the characteristics of excellent innovative companies, such as (Peters & Waterman, 2000, pp. 45–48): willingness to act; proximity to the customer (learning from people); autonomy and entrepreneurship; development in the stage of progress, efficiency thanks to employees and individual customers; active involvement, guided by values; remaining with what you know; simple form, less administration; a combination of slackness and rigidity;

10) the limited tendency of managers to systematically shape technical and social architecture supporting a culture of knowledge creation and innovation, learning and knowledge sharing (Prahalad & Krishnan, 2010, p. 66).

If there are weaknesses in R&D policies and management processes, systemic actions are necessary to eliminate these weaknesses and optimize existing solutions. Such action may involve the integration of R&D, innovative, production and market relations functions, achieved as a result of creating and implementing innovations in management, treated as a contextual variable, affecting the effectiveness of R&D work and innovative activities from the point of view of effective identification and solving an enterprise’s own problems, as well as customer problems. It should be realized that innovations in management dynamize R&D work, which in turn promotes an increase in the level of innovative activity that translates into the company’s economic results and customer satisfaction. Innovations in management are conducive to the effective creation of all categories of knowledge, which is a prerequisite for the effectiveness of innovative processes (Heij et al., 2020, p. 287).

R&D policy should therefore be aimed at increasing the dynamics of internal R&D activities based on the optimal use of internal resources with full openness to the acquisition and use of external resources, especially financial and human resources, in accordance with the open innovation model (Baruk, 2021, pp. 21–22; Mate and Molero, 2021, p. 8) and the models presented in Figures 1 and 2.

Proposals for further research

In the context of the results of the research presented in this article, further empirical research should be done on the methodology of shaping R&D and innovative policy in Polish enterprises and translating it into everyday activities. The following questions should be addresed:

1) Will these policies support the systemic, prospective development of enterprises, based on the use of various sources of knowledge materialized in innovation?

2) What is the culture of shaping and implementing R&D and innovation policy in enterprises?

3) What is the role of customers in R&D and innovation policy?

4) Are managers substantively and mentally prepared to create such a policy based on model solutions?

5) Are enterprises able to raise the funds necessary for the systemic development of R&D and innovation activities?

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Innovation in organizations has become a challenge for modern economies and a condition for keeping up with changes in the environment and shaping these changes in societies, social groups, and individuals. A broad understanding of innovation is to see beyond the achievements of researchers, experts, science, and technology. Innovation also includes the contributions from customers who are the ultimate users of goods and services. Thanks to their knowledge, skills, experiences, different points of view, and needs, they become active participants in the innovation process.

Indeed, companies have recently begun to understand that the customers’ intellectual capital can be a strategic set of intangible assets that influence competitive advantage (Rossi, Magni, 2017).

Creating innovation from the customer’s perspective is a way to invest in customers and to increase their value for the company (DobiegałaKorona 2010). The benefits for both parties depend on the innovation model. Models presented in the literature differ based on the customer’s participation in the innovation process. Some models are based only on customer opinions („voice of the customer”), and other models are based on the customers’ active participation. The authors indicate what motivates customers to participate in the co-creation of value and the requirements for increasing the effectiveness of these forms of cooperation. Further, we suggest the directions of changes that would help increase the chances of achieving the company’s desired effects (see also Mierzejewska, 2008; Wojnicka, 2011; Baran, Ostrowska, Pander, 2012; Busse, Siebert, 2018).

Using an agent-based approach, Ohori and Takahashi (2007) have created a model for analyzing innovation generated by the leading users.
The conducted simulations showed that companies could effectively manage innovations with the leading users’ participation if only they change their strategy by focusing on innovation communities.

Empirical studies conducted among Polish enterprises on user-created innovation indicate the limitations and benefits of applying such a concept in business practice. This can help researchers develop theories concerning other open innovation forms (Szopik-Depczyńska, 2018). An important direction of this research is related to the factors that hinder customers from submitting their ideas (Chepurna, Criado, 2018; Balaji, Roy, 2017; Gummesson, Mele, 2010), as the ability to overcome these barriers determines the level of activity and involvement of users in the innovation process.

The purpose of the article is to present factors affecting the process of co-creation of value with the participation of customers, with particular emphasis on open innovation. Further, this article indicates companycustomer cooperation conditions and the positive and negative effects of the demand-driven approach to innovation.

Rationale and principles of the demand-side approach to innovation based on user participation

The mechanism of open innovation is based on the idea of the free flow of knowledge, ideas, and technologies essential for creating innovation. Engaging the company’s stakeholders, especially customers, affects innovation policy changes and the company’s business model. The development of open innovation brings evident benefits to the company.

Those benefits are recognized not only by technology start-ups but also by companies from other industries. However, achieving these benefits requires appropriate management of the innovation process, reformulation of its objectives, principles, and instruments.
First of all, it is crucial to identify customers ready to cooperate with the company and determine the terms and conditions of this cooperation. However, the question arises: how do we identify such customers? Based on observations of behavior and relations with customers, the following groups are the most susceptible to cooperation with the company in generating innovation:

• Loyal customers of the brand, interested in its development and willing to cooperate with the company and the brand
• Demanding, active customers who expect personalization of the offer, its adaptation to individual expectations
• Influencers whose susceptibility to cooperation with a company is motivated by the desire to influence other users of the product, e.g., followers
• Institutional customers interested in cooperation with a company as it allows them to achieve mutual business benefits

The forms of stimulating involvement in creating innovations depend on the type of customers, and especially on whether they are individual or institutional customers.

There are several principles of a demand-driven approach to innovation that is based on user participation. Based on the literature review and the experience from the project „U — Drive: IT — User-Driven Innovation Transfer From ICT to Other Sectors, conducted within the Nordic Innovation Center, we emphasize that in the era of network intelligence, we state that the following principles are particularly crucial:

a) Sharing knowledge — getting ideas from users
b) Cooperating with the participants in the process of creating innovations
c) Openness to ideas, opinions, and comments of other participants of the innovation process
d) Using experience — the design process should be powered by applying previous experience, improving the existing solutions, and
implementing new ideas. Simulations are also necessary, e.g., using 3D visualizations or simulation computer games
e) Interdependence — acknowledging mutual relations between
participants of the innovation process
f) Honesty — transferring transparent information, opinions, results obtained at particular stages of the innovation process
g) Contextualisation — participatory design depends on the specific context in which it takes place. Participants (users, inventors, or producers) in the innovation process have different objectives and motivations which need to be recognized for the benefit of the process improvement
h) Iteration — active participation of users in the innovation process is revealed in generating ideas and creating prototypes that users evaluate. The proper improvement of the prototype and its iteration affects the desired final result (Tapscott, Williams, 2011, p. 32, Nordic Report, 2010, p. 21).

According to H.Chesbrough, who first pointed to Open Innovation as a concept of using internal and external ideas in creating innovation, it is cocreated by the following elements:

1. Network.
2. Collaboration involving partners, competitors, universities, and users.
3. Corporate entrepreneurship, especially through corporate ventures, start-ups, and spin-offs.
4. Proactive management of intellectual property: buying and selling intellectual property and thus creating technology markets.
5. Research and development (R&D) to gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace (Chesbrough, 2003).

Table 1 shows three models of customer involvement in the innovation process depending on whether the customers are merely a source of information, whether they co-create the innovation in collaboration with the company, or, finally, whether a customer is an innovator who owns their intellectual property.

There is no doubt that electronic communication is crucial in creating innovation. The interactive nature of such communication encourages users to interact with the company and with other users. They become more active and strive to take advantage of the opportunities. By proposing new products, customers express themselves and their needs and aspirations. ICT-based solutions help create platforms through which users can submit their ideas for a new product and evaluate other products. On the other hand, the company can get acquainted with them and choose the most promising idea.

In summary, the development of demand-side innovation requires stimulating the customers’ interest and willingness to cooperate with the company and creating the conditions for such cooperation. It brings benefits to both the company and the customer, which is translated into benefits for the economy and society.

Forms of consumer activity in open innovation

The forms of stimulating involvement in creating innovations depend on the type of customer and methods of obtaining ideas and creative solutions. Suppose the company uses only one-way communication (e.g., through ideas submitted on Internet forums or under models based on mass customization or task-based models). In that case, the complexity of such a process is low (Sopinska, 2013). More complex solutions include twoway communication, in which a company uses participation platforms and models based on the open-source. In such a case, the partnership with users who have access to software tools and databases expands their creative opportunities. The effects of these more complex solutions depend on the proper preparation of project assumptions, access to software tools and databases, and users’ competence in creating new solutions. Managersexperts of crowdsourcing are critical in this process, as they evaluate submitted ideas, identify high-quality ideas, and incorporate them into the internal research and development process (Liu, Zhao, Sun, 2018).

There are many examples of companies implementing successfully open-source innovation programs. They include P&G, IBM,
InnoCentive, Unilever, Mars, SAP, Kellogg’s, Mondelez International (Kraft Foods), Vodafone. Achieving success requires developing
a strategy of action and effective forms of cooperation to create new value. It is also necessary to use a specific platform for the realization of this cooperation. Among such platforms are platforms based on the design and exchange of ideas, platforms for creative co-creation of products, corporate initiatives — product ideas, corporate initiativesbranding and design, partner production and PiP, public crowdsourcing (Szopik-Depczyńska, 2018, p. 105).

A good example is the Bright Idea platform which gathers thousands of ideas that allow solving complex problems that R&D departments of the largest corporations such as Cisco, GE, MasterCard cannot cope with.

Kaggle platform, on the other hand, offers access to the computing power of thousands of data analysts, which generates more agility than any artificial intelligence (Malinowski, 2018). ICT-based innovations are important in studying the demand-side approach to innovation because they are based on the cooperation between a supplier and customer in all stages of product creation and sales.

Von Hippel (2015) indicated that the trend towards democratization of innovation is growing through software and information products.
However, recently, also other products and services such as surgical equipment, surfboards, and software security have become important in this process. Such trend is enforced by so-called „leading users” who are often ahead of market trends. They propose innovative and attractive solutions to users, which translates into the company’s success.

Table 2 presents the primary forms of implementing open innovation, indicating objectives, challenges, and situations in which they are applied.

Competitions as a form of creating innovations with customer participation

The most popular and effective form used in open innovation models is competitions. Competitions allow expanding the experimentation scope by soliciting proposals for multiple solutions from external participants (amateurs or specialists). This is especially important when the problem is complex or novel.

The broad development of crowdsourcing platforms facilitates individual users’ creative potential to generate new product, organizational, and marketing solutions.

As shown in Table 2, running an open innovation competition involves significant management challenges. First of all, it is necessary to formulate the problem regardless of company-specific qualities and present it to be entirely understandable for many external partners interested in participating in the competition. This may require breaking it down into many sub-problems or even different competitions.

The contest’s assumptions and structure should stimulate customers to participate by bringing solutions that the organization can implement. Moreover, promoting the contest is very important, including a clear presentation of the evaluation rules of solutions, expected prizes, or other forms of recognition for the participants.

The company should also define the contractual terms of participation, including the platform’s use, to ensure proper intellectual property protection. An excellent way to do this is to use prior agreements to respect copyrights and conforming behavior to the rules and the brief.

It is also necessary to pay attention to the need to use various forms of support for participants, i.e., dispelling their doubts, answering their questions, e.g., by conducting chats during the project and the possibility to contact the crowd manager responsible for coordinating the contest (Milewski, 2015).

Companies can use various online platforms designed to run contests for customers and other external entities. Currently, platforms such as TopCoder, Kaggle, and InnoCentive provide services for crowd contests. Those platforms facilitate participants’ engagement in such contests and streamline acquiring ideas in the co-creation of innovations. They also enable to process of payments, secure data, and transfer of intellectual property rights worldwide (Boudreau and Lakhani, 2013).

A good example of a software platform used in the open innovation model is CRM-Salesforce’s „Ideas,” where users submit their suggestions, which other customers comment on, allowing further idea analysis and evaluation. This platform is used by Starbucks and DELL, among others, and has been successfully used to improve those companies’ products and other offers.

Customers are the leading creators and evaluators of ideas, which the organization’s teams further implement. Starbucks managers found that the process of innovation’s creation requires an understanding of incentives that drive people who participate in creating ideas. It turns out that satisfaction and pride in participating in co-design can be an important motivator for customers cooperating with the brand (Starbucks, 2020). Such a trend is confirmed by the Lakhani and Wolf’s (2003) study conducted on a sample of 684 programmers. Their study showed that the main motivating factors for participating in open-source software projects come from the user’s intrinsic needs, the desire for intellectual stimulation associated with writing code, and improving programming skills (Lakhani and Wolf, 2003 ).

The role of collaborative communities

In the era of network intelligence, an important role in stimulating customer involvement in generating innovation is played by Online Communities created by people interested in a particular idea, brand, or activity type. The high rate of interaction between members of such communities increases their effectiveness in creating new solutions.

As a result, many social platforms now offer projects tailored to the community’s life, stimulating engagement in the creation of ideas for new products. Examples of such inspirations include Unilever’s sustainability products under the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan or the self-driving city buses, i.e., Accessible Olli produced by Local Motors. As part of crowdsourcing, customers can also co-determine whether a project qualifies for implementation, e.g., a new collection of yoga clothing by the British brand Catalyst Activewear. Starbucks has implemented many customersubmitted ideas. They include new products (such as Skinny Mocha, Cake Pops, sugar-free syrups, K cups), creating experiences (free Wi-Fi in their coffee shops), and ways to build community (Norton, 2019).

The strength of communities is their diversity. They can attract participants from all over the world — from different companies, domains, and industries — who have their interests and motivations, which fosters inspiration. Further, there are possibilities of shaping high consumer engagement by stimulating fan pages in social media, blogs, marketing games, and crowdsourcing platforms. Such activities’ high effectiveness has been observed, especially in the high-tech goods and banking sectors (Kieżel, Wiechoczek, 2016). What is noted is the potential of brand fans whose involvement is conducive to encouraging the promotion of ideas and innovation projects in their communities. One weakness of communities is the lack of cohesion, which makes it difficult to control crowds.

Tab. 3 presents examples of using online communities’ potential in value creation, highlighting the benefits of such forms of cooperation.

The main benefit of communities in creating innovations comes from finding solutions to the company’s problems and gathering new knowledge and skills. This is possible thanks to sharing ideas by the open innovation project participants.

Complementary communities

An extremely valuable form of open innovation is communities’ synergic activities, which, thanks to their creativity, enable them to solve many different problems by creating products complementary to the basic product. Platforms that allow generating such complementary innovations serve this purpose.

A good example is iTunes built around Apple’s core mobile products — the iPod, iPhone, and iPad. Through iTunes, vast groups of geographically dispersed developers create a wide range of complementary innovations, such as apps and podcasts created by users of these mobile devices.

The variety of complementary goods generates revenue and can also increase demand for the product itself, making it more useful. In turn, increased demand can increase the supply of complementary innovations and a whole host of network effects.

The effectiveness of using communities in creating complementary products is most significant for complex problems that require the consideration of a large number of diverse complements, which usually exceeds the internal potential and capabilities of a single company.

A fundamental prerequisite for the effective use of the community’s potential in creating complementary products is to provide access to features and detailed information about the output product. The company, therefore, provides technology interfaces that allow external developers to participate in the creation of complementary innovations. If the core product is simple, then access to data sources from the website is sufficient. More complicated cases are cases in which participants in complementary communities must select core product features to create new solutions compatible with the lead product. For example, third-party developers must use application programming interfaces (APIs) to access the software vendor’s capabilities to create complementary applications.

An excellent example of using institutional customers’ potential to create innovations is Procter & Gamble, which cooperates with young companies to acquire innovative approaches and new technological solutions. Fresh ideas and solutions are presented at Demo Day meetings organized by the company together with ABSL tech lab. The projects of such young technology companies as Brainly, Justtag, and Wise Shelf have shown Procter & Gamble a new perspective that is a source of inspiration in creating a new approach to business processes. Through such collaborations, the company can create innovations for European and global customers in business analytics, marketing, supply chain planning, Business Intelligence, or Big Data (IT Innovations, 2020). These customized solutions allow them to build a competitive advantage and meet consumer expectations better.

Other companies also provide examples of success in open innovation. For example, Google in 2015 released its automated learning tool
Tensorflow for collaboration under an open-source license (Appache 2.0). With Google’s creation of third-party developers’ ability to use the license, any solution they create that complies with the license terms can quickly evolve into a Google product. This strategy, typical in the IT industry, stimulates the company’s growth, which has positioned itself as a significant player in artificial intelligence ( Pierrard, 2019 ).

Another example is Nestlé, the Swiss food giant who created an open innovation platform, „Henri @ Nestlé,” through which it received more than 400 innovative solutions from start-ups in two years. The submissions received allow the company to respond to challenges in sustainability, nutrition, health, and consumer well-being (Nestlé, 2018).

Gamification in the process of open innovation

The main goal of gamification is to increase users’ motivation to participate in a particular process by using techniques that create a game mechanism. Therefore, it is used to stimulate innovation activities in the organization, and it can be part of the innovation process. The impact of gamification on the area of innovation is multidimensional. Participation of the company’s users and employees in a game stimulates free associations, divergent thinking, and creativity.

The use of gamification in the company’s innovation process requires specific rules (Robra-Bissantz, Lattemann, 2017):

• customers should get to know the company and its objectives in order to acquire the knowledge needed to participate in innovation processes
• customers should act as part of the company and share the same values as its employees’ values, especially when it comes to responsibility and loyalty
• customers should be creative and motivated and be willing to cooperate with other colleagues.

Gamification allows deepening participants’ positive motivation through incentives such as points earned, badges, prizes, feedback, and respect (Zichermann, Linder, 2010; Vassileva, 2012). The game scenario, which connects internal players with external players, includes teamwork based on a sense of belonging and mutual understanding. All players can formulate individual and group goals and decisions. The achievement of goals through the synergy effect leads to a common solution, revealing new approaches and interesting ideas along the way.

Thus, gamification components are used in the Customer Connection program implemented by SAP, allowing customers to directly influence products’ continuous improvements within the company’s development portfolio. Using gamification elements, the company increases customers’ interest in participating in the program, proposing improvements in the offered products (Masser, Mory, 2018).

Customer-players operate on the Customer Influence platform acting in various roles: (1) „Submitters” who describe their ideas. (2) „Subscribers” who „vote” on an idea and thus prioritize it to make it eligible for analysis; (3) „Observers” who receive information about the progress of an idea and comment on it. The program uses key elements of gamification in order for its participants to have fun while working together to find the best solutions. These gamification features increase its usefulness in shaping the activity and involvement of participants in the innovation process.

Factors determining the process of implementation of the open innovation model

The effective use of customers’ potential in creating innovation requires recognizing factors motivating customers to cooperate with the company and factors stimulating companies to engage customers in the innovation process.

When adopting the customers’ perspective, it is necessary to consider psychological and behavioral processes that refer to the customers’
motivation to cooperate with the company regarding innovation.

Companies should perceive motivations and customer skills as necessary premises in managing innovation processes. Recognizing these motivations allows for creating appropriate ways to encourage customers to create innovation and effective customer input. Understanding customer motivation also facilitates selecting the right customers whose potential provides good prospects for cooperation with the company in creating innovations. Therefore, companies need to conduct marketing research focused on potential customers to recognize their characteristics, expectations, and willingness to cooperate with the company. There are a number of methods available. Their use requires an extremely valuable qualitative approach, which allows investigating the mechanism behind potential customers’ motivation and needs and anticipating these needs and expectations. Monitoring trends and changes in the consumer behavior can be the starting point because it shows the space for searching for new product ideas.

When adopting the company’s perspective, it is necessary to indicate the organization’s internal factors that affect its approach to customer participation in creating innovations (Cui A, 2018). These are factors related both to the company’s strategy and organizational aspects. They primarily concern managers’ behaviors, their openness to cooperation with customers, and understanding of the benefits obtained from including customers in the process of creating innovations (Hoyer et al. 2010; Mohr and Sarin 2009, Bartl et al. 2012). Their decisions in managing the process of engaging customers also depend on managers’ attitudes and role in building organizational culture.

The key is to recognize customer innovation’s strategic impact on the innovation process and its implementation, such as creativity, efficiency, and speed. Furthermore, future research should identify how adopting an innovation model with customer participation can affect companies’ overall strategic choices, management concepts, and long-term results.

Adopting a strategic perspective also requires consideration of customer innovation in the context of knowledge management processes. Customers play an active role in knowledge management if they have the opportunity to share knowledge and co-create a new product and innovative organizational or marketing solutions. However, such involvement requires treating customers as the company’s crucial partners, who have a clear specificity compared to other stakeholders. Therefore, to effectively use their potential, new organizational structures and new management systems are needed. Directions of these changes are presented in Tab. 4.

Below we explain the changes needed to implement the demand-driven approach to innovation:

1. New corporate culture — the first stage of opening the company to using the open innovation model is transforming the organizational culture by saturating it with greater openness, tolerance, knowledge sharing, and the need to act jointly to pursue goals is. This leads to a change in mentality, which is the biggest barrier to introducing changes.
2. The company’s business model — such a model should support extensive cooperation with different stakeholders, including customers, in the process of generating innovation. Focusing on a customer as an active participant in the innovation process requires defining the principles and forms of cooperation. Assumptions of the User design model, e.g., an open model of cooperation, require skillful customer knowledge management and efficient information flow between the company and its environment.
3. Shaping good relationships between the company and customers — proper identification of customers by their interests in specific products, buying behaviors, and readiness to cooperate with the company should be the basis for these relationships. The company should develop partnership relationships with customers to motivate them to cooperate with the company. It also requires the use of various forms and tools tailored to the character and types of customers.
4. Shaping the communication system with customers — this system should be based on personalized communication channels with
   customers and forms and instruments of communication dedicated to recognized types of customers. This allows increasing the effectiveness of their influence on these customers.
5. Changes in the enterprise’s organizational structure — developing cooperation with customers requires flexibility of the company’s organizational structure and immediate response to the environment’s signals. Hybrid organizational structures, e.g., matrix structures, which allow for the implementation of tasks beyond standard sets of tasks and employees’ responsibility, can meet this challenge. Innovation centers in which customers and suppliers cooperate since the emergence of a new product can be an example of such structures. One such example is the case study of Mercadona, a leading retailer in Spain that introduces new products developed using this innovative approach to co-innovation (AIbors — Garrigos, 2020).
6. Intermediaries in the creation of open innovations — the new challenge is to use the services of new market actors acting as intermediaries in creating open innovations. Their mission is to support companies in opening themselves to cooperation with external entities, including consumers, in the best way. Intermediaries can adopt various forms and methods of operation, including network platforms, open innovative consultations, or performance of a cooperation accelerator’s function by providing companies seeking innovation with solutions dedicated to them (AIbors-Garrigos, 2020). Using these intermediaries’ services also allows companies to reduce the risk of cooperation with unknown entities and save time while searching for stakeholders willing to cooperate.
7. Changes in staff management — demand approach to innovation require proper preparation of the company employees at all management levels. It is important to apply new methods of training the competencies of managers and employees involved in shaping relationships with customers at various levels. Those skills should include skills needed to identify customers with creative potential who will cooperate with the company. Co-creation should not be seen as a threat to employees but rather as an encouragement to diversify thinking and recognize different views with customers’ participation from many environments. Unilever cooperates within the Open Innovation Platform with individual customers and designers, researchers, or new companies (Unilever, access: 4/01/2018).
8. Creating Internet technology-based tools for cooperation with customers — in creating innovation, achieving the desired effects of cooperation with customers requires equipping them with appropriate tools, enabling the submission of ideas and other forms of participation in this process. The collaboration tools in innovation should be included in the enterprise’s ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system. Such a system allows for the integration of organizational processes. Therefore, in addition to all management functions included in the system and related to production, finance, sales, or marketing, among others, the new area of open innovations should be added. Within this function, it is necessary to add crowdsourcing platforms for reporting innovations, create models of process simulations, conduct experiments, and test innovations (products, solutions) with customer participation. Cooperation with customers may also require the use of a variety of techniques to stimulate customer creativity.
9. Integration of the processes of customer participation with internal NPD systems (new product development and production systems)
   Achieving integration of open innovation processes with existing NPD systems is a serious challenge for companies (Cui, 2018). This integration is necessary to ensure the elementary conditions for implementing innovation.
10. Development of a strategy for managing the intellectual property system

The application of customer potential-based concepts requires the company to solve legal problems related to copyright. Acquiring intellectual property is complex and involves many challenges because a high level of intellectual property protection inhibits open innovations. The lack of such protection can lead companies to hide new company solutions, which hinders but even restrains the development of open innovations. Therefore, it is necessary to establish clear and detailed rules for intellectual property management strategy, as the lack of caution and violation of these principles can have profound legal implications. First of all, the acquiring company should ensure that the purchased intellectual property enjoys balanced legal protection under one of the categories of intellectual property rights recognized by law (Mention, Al-Sharieh, 2013).

The use of intellectual property in open, innovative environments may take the form of attribution/acquisition of intellectual property and intellectual property license. Both forms are legal actions that must be effectively applied to avoid negative consequences from the legal protection of companies’ intellectual property involved in open innovations.

It should be noticed that intellectual property licensing resolves the tension between knowledge protection and knowledge sharing (Bogers, 2011). Based on a survey conducted among over 154 industrial companies, Lichtenthaler (2010) observed that intellectual property portfolio size plays a vital role in encouraging the company to move to the open innovation paradigm.

The best approach that enables proper use of the intellectual property right to stimulate innovation is to design it so that the right balance between external innovators’ and the company’s interests is achieved.

The possible solutions include co-patenting by the entities involved in the cooperation and applying for the legal protection of jointly owned inventions. However, there is a risk of a conflict of interest between the patent co-owners (Wściubiak, 2017).

When assessing the effects of consumer participation in the process of value creation, especially the creation of innovations, the following impact on the company, economy, and society should be emphasized:

• Increasing the role of human capital in business models and the scale of social participation in management;
• Gaining access to non-standard concepts through acquiring knowledge directly from the market and strengthening relationships with customers;
• Transforming the organizational business innovation system through opening it to external stakeholders;
• Increasing the efficiency of operations related to the creation of innovations. The achieved results prove to be valuable concerning the relatively small costs of cooperation with customers;
• Increasing the chance of satisfying consumer needs in accordance with individual aspirations and expectations as well as possibilities of selfrealization of consumers — innovators;
• Stimulating social entrepreneurship development, development of a partnership network, culture of trust, and cooperation.

However, it is also necessary to indicate the possible destructive impact of customer-organization value creation practices. This is a phenomenon of the so-called co-destruction that may result from the inappropriate or unexpected use of resources, e.g., inconsistent with the resource provider or potential user’s perspective. This can be accidental or intentional.

Accidental improper use may result from the lack of sufficient customer knowledge. As Jeff Howe said, „sometimes the crowd can be wise, but sometimes it can also be stupid” (Surowiecki, 2019).

Deliberate abuse resulting from sabotage or opportunistic behavior can be a threat. Dziewanowska (2017) and Harris LC and Ogbonna E. (2006), as well as DA Greer (2015), describe three types of defective behaviors, including relational (e.g., insufficient or excessive participation), interpersonal (e.g., verbal or physical), and inappropriate behaviors (property abuse and fraud).

It should also be emphasized that thanks to the progress in Internet technologies and the growing popularity of social media, crowdsourcing offers new forms of work. Simultaneously, the question arises whether these new forms of work allow employees to create their careers or create a workshop where employees perform fragmented tasks to earn a minimum wage (Howe, 2006).

There are a few threats to the organization-customer value co-creation:

• Ethical issues related to injustice, lack of transparency and clearly defined fair rules, or non-compliance with previously established rules for customer participation in the value creation process;
• Difficulties in maintaining the confidentiality of information, which may lead to cooperation only with contractors cooperating in a long term;
• Risk arises from manipulating crowdsourcing participants through stronger, more opinion-forming individuals and a leader that does not necessarily support the initiative (Surowiecki, 2019).

Conclusions

Co-creation of value with customers’ active role is a big challenge. The customer is no longer just the recipient of the offer but increasingly becomes a co-creator of organizational value or even contributes as an innovator. The development of information and communication
technologies means that the customer’s cooperation with the company takes various forms, among which joining the creation of open innovations is crucial. Effective use of customer potential requires recognizing both factors motivating customers to cooperate with the company and factors stimulating companies to engage customers in the innovation process. This allows the development of an appropriate model for managing the innovation process with customers’ active participation. The application of such a model has specific strategic implications regarding organizational culture, business models, and changes in company management systems, especially in internal and customer-centric knowledge management.

Cultural changes resulting in the growing importance of such values as taking initiatives, creativity, self-realization, and striving to participate in shaping reality are important in developing open innovation. Achieving effects for both end-users and the organization will result from the impact of stimulants and destimulants of value creation with the participation of users. The effectiveness of using factors supporting open innovation and minimizing the impact of various types of threats depends on managers’ experience and skills.

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Zachowania klientów tworzą podstawę działalności lojalnościowej firmy.

Znajomość procesu kształtowania lojalności odgrywa ważną rolę w działaniach zakładu ubezpieczeń. Lojalność jest kategorią złożoną, interdyscyplinarną i tym samym trudną do jednoznacznego zdefiniowania. Definicja lojalności jest wciąż na nowo interpretowana, ponieważ istnieje wiele wątpliwości dotyczących sposobu jej opisywania, i generuje to trudności przy zestawianiu ze sobą wyników badań. Swoboda, jaka panuje przy interpretacji zagadnień powiązanych z lojalnością klientów, negatywnie wpływa na badania nad występującymi prawidłowościami w zachowaniach klientów (Rogoziński, 2006, s. 44–45).

W wielu publikacjach autorzy nie podejmują się zdefiniowania tego pojęcia, inni natomiast lojalność traktują w różnoraki sposób. Lojalność z punktu widzenia firmy rozpatruje się jako regularne kupowanie usług, postawienie firmy w pozytywnym świetle przez klientów oraz branie pod uwagę zakupów w danej firmie, gdy zaistnieje taka potrzeba. W wielu pozycjach literatury nie wspomina się o istotności stosunków pomiędzy klientem a firmą, co jest podstawą przy kreowaniu lojalności (Rogoziński, 2006, s. 46).

Lojalność można rozumieć jako relację pomiędzy klientem a firmą w dłuższym okresie. Klienci nawiązują relację, biorąc pod uwagę czynniki kognitywne i afektywne, dzięki którym podwyższana jest wartość stosunków między klientami a firmą. Skupiając się na uzyskaniu lojalności klientów, firma może uzyskać wyższy zysk z działalności gospodarczej. Lojalność kojarzy się z przywiązaniem, rzetelnością, wiernością oraz zaangażowaniem. Najkrócej definiowana oznacza wierność i oddanie jakieś firmie lub osobie (Kopaliński, 1998, s. 306). Lojalny klient to osoba, która dokonuje regularnych, powtarzających się zakupów, korzysta z produktów lub usług oferowanych przez firmę, rozpowszechnia pozytywne informacje o tej firmie, a także jest odporna na działania promocyjne firm konkurencyjnych.

Lojalny klient to klient „przywiązany” do firmy, niepoddający się działaniom konkurentów (tzw. klient trudny do pozyskania) oraz reprezentujący na rynku, zgodnie z ustaleniami, interesy „swojej” firmy (Rudawska, 2007, s. 51).

Czyli za klienta lojalnego możemy uznać osobę, która dokonuje ponownych zakupów tych samych usług zawsze w tej samej firmie (Altkorn i Kramer, 1990). Również lojalny klient wygłasza pozytywne opinie o firmie, z której usług korzysta, zachęca innych klientów do korzystania z usług tej firmy i jest odporny na działania promocyjne konkurencji. Zagadnienie lojalności klienta odgrywa istotne znaczenie w firmach, które mają bezpośredni kontakt z ostatecznymi nabywcami produktów lub usług. A prawdziwy sukces odnoszą te firmy, w których klienci dokonują powtarzających się zakupów.

Dostrzeżono, że klienci są bardziej skłonni, aby robić zakupy w jednej firmie. Potrafią oni również nabyć produkty za wyższą cenę tylko w momencie odczucia zadowolenia przy wcześniejszych wizytach w danej firmie (Rogoziński, 2006). Można zauważyć, że klient staje się też lojalny wobec firmy, kiedy otrzymuje usługi, które w pełni go zadowalają. Od stopnia zadowolenia z jakości usług zależy przywiązanie do firmy. Klienci, którzy są zadowoleni z jakości świadczonych usług, dokonują kolejnych zakupów w danej firmie. Na umocnienie lojalności wpływa również okazywanie przez firmę zainteresowania klientem, kompetentna obsługa i wychodzenie naprzeciw potrzebom klienta. Lojalność jest od dawna pojęciem używanym w marketingu, ponieważ bardzo istotne jest utrzymanie stałych klientów, którzy są tańsi od pozyskiwania nowych ze względu na niższe koszty związane z przepływem informacji, promocji i obsługi. Panuje dość powszechne przekonanie, iż wzrost zadowolenia klientów przekłada się na wzrost ich lojalności, co z kolei wpływa na wielkość zysku (Doyle, 2003, s. 100). Firmy, które obecnie funkcjonują w środowisku konkurencyjnym i mają do czynienia z coraz bardziej wymagającymi, świadomymi klientami muszą starać się nie tylko zadowolić klienta, ale wręcz go zachwycić.

Tylko taki klient może pozostać lojalny wobec firmy i polecić ją innym klientom. Klient zadowolony może poszukiwać wciąż innych okazji i korzyści w innych firmach. Natomiast klient zachwycony będzie lojalny i w pierwszej kolejności będzie przychodził do „swojej” firmy, nawet jeśli ta nie oferuje jeszcze danej usługi. Lojalni klienci będą źródłem nowych pomysłów i idei, pomagając stworzyć nową usługę zaspokajającą ich potrzeby. Dlatego wiedza na temat satysfakcji klientów i ich lojalności wobec firmy jest bardzo istotna.

Klienci na rynku usług ubezpieczeniowych są coraz bardziej wymagający potrafią korzystać ze stron WWW zakładów ubezpieczeń i dokonywać porównań oferty czy też wysokości składek ubezpieczeniowych. Dlatego bardzo ważne jest tworzenie takiej więzi z klientem, która przekładałaby się na lojalność klienta wobec zakładu ubezpieczeń.

Metody badania lojalności klientów na rynku usług ubezpieczeniowych

Lojalność kojarzy się z przywiązaniem, rzetelnością, wiernością oraz zaangażowaniem. Zakłady ubezpieczeń powinny dokonywać pomiaru lojalności swoich klientów. W ramach tych badań dokonuje się najczęściej pomiaru na płaszczyźnie pojedynczych relacji z klientem. Najczęściej bada się częstotliwość, powtarzalność i liczbę dokonywanych zakupów polis ubezpieczeniowych. Badanie to pozwala zbadać brak lub istnienie lojalności, jednak bez wyjaśnienia zachowań takiego działania czy też odczuć klientów.

T. Jones i W.E. Sasser Jr. (Jones i Sasser, 1995, s. 97) zgrupowali wskaźniki pomiaru lojalności klientów w trzy kategorie, które można zastosować na rynku usług ubezpieczeniowych. Są nimi:

• zamiar dokonania powtórnych zakupów w tej samej firmie ubezpieczeniowej,
• czy klient poleci „swoją” firmę ubezpieczeniową innym osobom,
• zbadanie podstawowych zachowań klientów, takich jak częstotliwość dokonywania zakupów, kontynuacja ubezpieczenia w tej samej firmie ubezpieczeniowej, jak długo był on klientem firmy, kiedy po raz ostatni dokonał zakupu.

Do badania lojalności i satysfakcji klientów wykorzystywane są również metody Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) i TRI*M Index, Net Promotor Score (NPS). NPS to metoda do pomiaru, ilu klientów danej firmy poleci ją swoim znajomym. Metoda CSI wykorzystywana jest w marketingu do określenia poziomu satysfakcji klienta z produktów lub usług oferowanych przez firmę.

Metoda ta jest stosunkowo prosta do dokonywania obliczeń, ale zebranie pełnych, wiarygodnych i użytecznych informacji wymaga przeprowadzenia dość zaawansowanych badań marketingowych. TRI*M to metoda badania lojalności klientów, na którą składają się dwa narzędzia: mapa TRI*M i indeks TRI*M. Indeks TRI*M jest ilościową (wyrażoną jedną liczbą) miarą zadowolenia i przywiązania konsumenta. Mapa TRI*M z kolei określa te czynniki, które decydują o lojalności klienta (Nowotarska-Romaniak, 2013, s. 108).

Net Promotor Score jest to metoda służąca do pomiaru lojalności klientów. Została ona opracowana przez Fredericka F. Reichhelda przy współpracy z firmami badawczymi i opisana szczegółowo w artykule pt. The One Number You Need to Grow (Reichheld, 2003, s. 8–10). Jego idea polega na zadaniu klientowi jednego pytania: „Jak bardzo jest prawdopodobne, że polecisz [firmę X] swojemu znajomemu?” (ang. How likely is it, that you would recommend [company X] to a friend or coleague?). Badany zaznacza odpowiedź na 11-stopniowej skali: 0 — w ogóle nie polecę, 10 — polecę z pewnością. Następnie wszystkich uczestników badania dzieli się na grupy:

• promoters — entuzjastycznie nastawieni lojalni klienci, którzy będą firmę polecali i napędzali jej rozwój,
• passives — osoby zadowolone, ale nie lojalne, są podatne na konkurencyjne oferty,
• detractors — niezadowoleni klienci, nie będą nas polecali.

W następnej kolejności liczymy za pomocą wskaźnika udział „promoters” w naszym badaniu i odejmujemy od niego udział „detractors”. Wynik, który uzyskujemy, to właśnie Net Promoter Score. Im wyższa i dodatnia wartość wskaźnika, tym lepiej dla firmy, która jest badana.

Zakłady ubezpieczeń w Polsce wykorzystują ten wskaźnik do badania:

• koncentracji na emocjach klienta i jego odczuciach związanych z firmą, jest to bardzo restrykcyjne, ponieważ za prawdziwych entuzjastów firmy uważa się tylko klientów, którzy oceniają zakład ubezpieczeń na 9 i 10;
• wszystkim klientom zadaje się to samo pytanie, a następnie analizuje się, z czym najmocniej kojarzy mu się zakład ubezpieczeń X, z jakim obszarem, departamentem i czy są to odczucia pozytywne czy negatywne;
• badania są prowadzone w sposób ciągły, na kilkusetosobowych próbkach miesięcznie: po zakupie polisy: życiowej, majątkowej, po likwidacji szkody, w kolejną rocznicę posiadania polisy życiowej, po wypłacie zwrotu składki, po wykupie częściowym, zmianie alokacji składki czy po odbytej wizycie lekarskiej.

NPS wymaga słuchania, uczenia się i zmiany dzięki uzyskaniu informacji zwrotnej od klienta. Zakłady ubezpieczeń w Polsce przeprowadzają badanie w okresach kwartalnych, dokonując równocześnie porównań efektów dokonywanych działań przez firmę w celu poprawienia współpracy ze swoimi klientami. Na polskim rynku ubezpieczeń przeprowadza się niewiele badań na temat lojalności klientów. Dotyczą one głownie informacji na temat czynników wpływających na popyt usług ubezpieczeniowych czy tez czynników warunkujących wybór usługi ubezpieczeniowej i tego, jakie usługi ubezpieczeniowe cieszą się największym zainteresowaniem (Nowotarska-Romaniak, 2009).

Czynniki wpływające na lojalność klienta na rynku usług ubezpieczeniowych

Zakłady ubezpieczeń stają się konkurencyjne w momencie umiejętnego wykorzystania czynników tkwiących w jej wewnętrznej strukturze czy za pośrednictwem uwarunkowań pochodzących z zewnątrz. Pozwala to nie tylko na kreowanie przewagi nad konkurencją, ale też pozwala na badanie czynników wpływających na lojalność klientów (Walczak, 2010, s. 7).

Do czynników wpływających na lojalność klientów zaliczamy czynniki endogeniczne i egzogeniczne.

Czynniki endogeniczne bezpośrednio dotyczą klientów. Zalicza się do nich: uzyskane wartości przez nabycie usług ubezpieczeniowych w zakładach ubezpieczeń, stopień zaangażowania się w czynne nabywanie, niebezpieczeństwa, jakie mogą się pojawić. Natomiast czynniki egzogeniczne nie są zależne od klientów. Skupiają się tylko na cechach firmy i usług oferowanych (Kwiatek, 2007, s. 38–39).

Według P. Kwiatek na lojalność klientów wpływają takie czynniki, jak: cechy klienta, otoczenie społeczne, warunki rynkowe oraz cechy marki 1). Są to czynniki, które mogą się wzajemnie przeplatać czy też wzajemnie się determinować.

Znajomość czynników wpływających na lojalność klientów i monitorowanie lojalności na rynku usług ubezpieczeniowych odgrywa fundamentalną rolę w dostarczaniu informacji, co ułatwia ubezpieczycielowi zdefiniowanie poziomu konkurencyjności i jej wpływu na stabilność firmy. Dodatkowo monitorowanie lojalności klienta dostarcza informacji o pozycji firmy na rynku i pomaga ubezpieczycielowi skutecznie adresować strategie pozyskiwania i utrzymania klienta. Istotne informacje, jakie musi posiadać zakład ubezpieczeń, by móc monitorować lojalność klientów, przedstawia tabela 1.

Informacja o kliencie na rynku usług ubezpieczeniowych odgrywa bardzo istotną rolę w badaniu lojalności. Niezbędna jest znajomość danych dotyczących informacji, czy klient zrezygnował z usługi ubezpieczeniowej, bo przestało istnieć ryzyko dla posiadacza polisy (np. sprzedaż samochodu), czy podpisał umowę z innym zakładem ubezpieczeń po zakończeniu okresu ubezpieczenia (np. na określoną nieruchomość czy samochód). Wzrost funduszy nabywczych klientów wpływa na zwiększenie zakresu decyzji klienta, a różnorodność usług ubezpieczeniowych na ich zaspakajanie. Należy jednak pamiętać, że zachowania klienta charakteryzują się zmiennością i podatnością na czynniki płynące z zewnątrz, a zakup usługi nie kończy procesu postępowania klienta. Istotną rolę odgrywa proces sprzedaży usługi ubezpieczeniowej i jego ocena po zakupie. Bardzo istotnym procesem jest likwidacja szkody i ocena tego procesu przez klienta. Etap ten wydaje się szczególnie ważny dla zakładów ubezpieczeń, ponieważ wyrabia opinie o ubezpieczeniu przez klienta i wtedy decyduje on o dalszej współpracy z zakładem ubezpieczeń, a to z kolei wpływa na przyszłe lojalne zachowania klienta. Dlatego bardzo istotnym działaniem zakładów ubezpieczeń jest badanie zachowań klientów w sektorze ubezpieczeniowym, w tym również lojalności klientów wobec tych firm.

Badanie lojalności klientów na rynku usług ubezpieczeniowych

Na rynku usług ubezpieczeniowych istnieje duża konkurencja — i to zarówno w zakresie samych zakładów ubezpieczeniowych, jak i ich oferty. Zakłady te oferują usługi ubezpieczeń majątkowych i na życie dotychczasowym i potencjalnym klientom. Bardzo istotna jest wiedza na temat lojalności klientów wobec zakładów ubezpieczeń. Dlatego autorka na potrzeby tego opracowania przeprowadziła badanie ankietowe. Badanie zostało przeprowadzone w dniach 10–20 maja 2019 r. za pomocą ankiety interaktywnej (www.docs.google.com) wyświetlanej na platformie społecznościowej Facebook. Ankieta była skierowana do osób pełnoletnich, które były klientami zakładów ubezpieczeń. Dobór próby był losowo-celowy.

Ankieta zawierała trzy pytania metryczkowe: o płeć (kobiety — 59%, mężczyźni — 41%), o wiek (18–30 lat — 39%, 31–60 lat — 38% i powyżej 60 lat — 23%) oraz o wykształcenie (zawodowe — 28%, średnie — 37%, wyższe — 35%) i pięć pytań podtawowych dotyczących badania lojalności klientów zakłądów ubezpieczeń. Otrzymano 187 prawidłowo wypełnionych ankiet. Pierwszym pytaniem było, jakie czynniki decydują o zadowoleniu klienta z posiadanej usługi ubezpieczeniowej. Respondenci wymienili takie czynniki, jak: wysokość otrzymanego odszkodowania w momencie wystąpienia wypadku ubezpieczeniowego, szybkość procesu likwidacji szkody, fachowa obsługa, łatwość dojazdu i parkowania. Poziom zadowolenia oraz zaufania nie gwarantuje, że klient ponownie dokona zakupu w tym samym zakładzie ubezpieczeń. Ale pozyskując zaufanie klientów, zdobywamy lojalność klientów (Nowotarska-Romaniak, 2013).

Następnym problemem badawczym było, jak często klienci zmieniają zakłady ubezpieczeń. Badanie dotyczyło klientów ubezpieczeń na życie, jak również klientów ubezpieczeń majątkowych. Na podstawie przeprowadzonego badania ankietowego można stwierdzić, że klienci ubezpieczeń na życie nie zmieniają zakładu ubezpieczeń (82%). Jeżeli już, to rezygnują z kontynuacji ubezpieczenia na życie. Natomiast w ubezpieczeniach majątkowych 49% badanych nie zmieniło zakładu ubezpieczeń, 47% badanych — zmieniło, a 4% — nie pamięta. Wyniki świadczą o tym, że jest duża grupa klientów, która nie zmienia swojego zakładu ubezpieczeń, jest do niego przywiązana czy też lojalna. Równocześnie jest duża grupa klientów, która zmienia zakład ubezpieczeń. Na podstawie badania można stwierdzić, że jest to spowodowane porównywaniem cen (74%) lub niezadowoleniem z przeprowadzonego procesu likwidacji szkody (68%). Analizując te wyniki według metryczki, są one porównywalne do wyników ogółem. Ważnym pytaniem w badaniu było, jakie czynniki wpływają na zadowolenie klientów zakładów ubezpieczeń, które mogą wpłynąć na lojalność (rysunek 2).

Do czynników wpływających na zadowolenie klientów z zakładów ubezpieczeń, które mogą wpłynąć na lojalność, należą wysokość odszkodowania i szybkość procesu likwidacji szkody. Wysokość składki ubezpieczeniowej to dopiero trzeci czynnik w kolejności. Zakłady ubezpieczeń mają grupy lojalnych klientów. Klienci zakładów ubezpieczeń na życie (aż 87%) deklarują, że są lojalni wobec swoich firm. Natomiast klienci zakładów ubezpieczeń majątkowych w 59% deklarują że są lojalni. W zależności od wieku wskaźnik lojalności kształtuje się różnie. Najbardziej lojalni są ludzie starsi, którzy zdecydowanie deklarują, że będą korzystać z usług „swojego” zakładu ubezpieczeń. Najmniej lojalni są młodzi klienci (58%), którzy przy ponownym zakupie usługi ubezpieczeniowej, mimo zadowolenia z dotychczasowej współpracy, dokonują ponownej analizy oferty rynkowej. Analizując płeć badanych, można stwierdzić, że bardziej lojalne są kobiety (78%) niż mężczyźni (57%).

Badania potwierdziły, że zakłady ubezpieczeń posiadają lojalnych klientów; ważne jest, by potrafiły zadbać o nich, ponieważ ta lojalność może zostać szybko zachwiana przez konkurencyjne zakłady ubezpieczeń, które zaoferują klientom dodatkowe korzyści.

Podsumowanie

Lojalność klientów na rynku usług ubezpieczeniowych jest istotnym problemem, zwłaszcza że na tym rynku występuje duża konkurencja i walka o klienta. Zakłady ubezpieczeń muszą znać i stosować czynniki, które wpływają na lojalność klientów. Natomiast badania wykazały, że duża grupa klientów zwłaszcza starszych jest lojalna. Dlatego zakłady ubezpieczeń, które chcąc dbać o swoich lojalnych klientów, powinny nie tylko oferować im dobre usługi ubezpieczeniowe z szybkim i rzetelnym procesem likwidacji szkody, ale także powinny podejmować działania ukierunkowane na budowanie tej lojalności. Czyli przede wszystkim na poznanie klienta i szukanie możliwości porozumienia. Możliwość porozumienia sprzedawcy z klientem pozwala na omówienie i określenie stanu obecnego klienta w zakresie odczuwanych potrzeb, zagrożeń i posiadanych usług ubezpieczeniowych.

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