European Journal of Service Management

In modern global economy, the ability to create and implement innovations is a key factor in building the enterprise’s competitiveness and increasing its value. Despite indisputable benefits resulting from the implementation of innovation, running innovative activity also generates significant risks and uncertainties associated primarily with the need to incur expenditures on the development and launching of innovation, as well as the inability to clearly determine whether the new product will gain positive market acceptance. The author put forward the following thesis: (H1): there is a positive relationship between innovation efficiency (the number of implemented/absorbed innovations) and the efficiency of innovative activities of enterprises in the SME sector, thus increasing experience in the implementation of innovation processes reduces the risks associated with implementing new solutions and increasing the efficiency of implemented innovation processes. The study used the exploratory-descriptive method, which consists in statistical aggregation of the obtained results in selected analytical cross-sections. Empirical data was obtained using an online questionnaire and study involved 361 companies registered throughout the country, actively operating during the study period.