Relationships between Organization of R&D Department and Innovativeness of a Company: Recommendations for HRM

Literature review reveals significant interest in organizational innovativeness. Despite numerous studies little is known about factors influencing the level of innovativeness of a company. In the paper I examine relationships between the number of employees, the budget for R&D, approach for rewarding innovative employees and measures of innovativeness of a company (number of innovations created and managerial opinions about the level of innovativeness). The empirical study carried on in 250 companies in Poland (in 2011) brings support to relations between the number of employees within the R&D department and the number of innovations created as well as between existence of a formal program of innovation support and all (objective and subjective) measures of innovativeness. Surprisingly, study does not bring support for relations between the budget, rewarding of innovative employees and the number of innovations. In the final part implications for human resource management are discussed and future research directions are depicted.