(Nowy Sacz School of Business – National-Louis University, 2014) Marczewska, Magdalena
The article presents two important forces influencing the development of product
innovations by suppliers of environmentally sound technologies, namely competitors
and consumers. It discusses these phenomena on the basis of different theoretical
approaches (Ansoff and Stewart, 1967; Von Hippel, 1987, 2005, 2007; Prahalad and
Ramaswamy, 2004). The results of the study show that Polish companies-suppliers of
environmentally sound technologies are willing to gain inspiration from both demand
and supply side market players. In case of supply side of the market, in most cases
inspiration was not aimed at copying existing successful ideas. The competitors are
perceived rather as a source of inspiration for further development of technological
solutions. Although companies concentrate on having a relationship with customers
and track their behavior, these relations have not been established by the Polish
companies researched here in order to treat users as co-creators of product improvements
or novelties.