Expenditures on innovation activities of firms in Poland at the nuts-2 level (covid and post-covid perspectives)

Purpose: This research aims to identify how expenditures on firms’ innovation activities in Poland differ at the NUTS-2 level (with a focus on the covid and post-covid perspectives). Design/methodology/approach: This study adopts the following methods: comparative analysis, zero unitarization method and multivariate analysis. The research draws on data from Local Bank Data, Statistics Poland, related to expenditures on firms’ innovation activities in the period 2018−2022. Findings: The results reveal that, despite of the occurrence of conditions of high constraints caused by the covid pandemic, the highest diversity in expenditures on innovation is observed between almost the very same Polish NUTS-2 regions in 2018-2022. The results also indicate that the covid pandemic noticeably encourages Polish firms, especially from the service sector, to increase expenditures on innovation processes. Research limitations/implications: This study has some limitations. As the focus of the research is on total firms’ innovation expenditures and firms’ own resources for innovation, it would be useful to see whether the results are similar for other variables describing expenditures on firms’ innovation activities. It would also be worth investigating the reasons for maintaining the highest diversity between Polish NUTS 2 regions in terms of expenditure on firms’ innovation processes, which can be observed almost between the same regions despite the conditions of severe constraints due to the covid pandemic. Practical implications: The results suggest a further strengthening of the pro-innovation attitude of Polish industrial and service firms. The research also highlights the need for policy makers to further strengthen the conditions for fostering innovation processes of firms. Originality/value: This research contributes to the ongoing discussion on the drivers and sources of firms’ innovation activities through the identification of the differences between the NUTS-2 regions in Poland in terms of expenditures on innovation activities in the covid and post-covid perspectives. The study also reveals more about the innovation processes of Polish firms under severe conditions.