Entrepreneurial Discovery Process Project 2014, Firm Interviews
Poland, 2014 - 2015
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POL_2014_EDPFI_v01_M
Entrepreneurial Discovery Process Project 2014
Firm Interviews
| Name | Country code |
|---|---|
| Poland | POL |
Enterprise Survey [en/oth]
The EDP consisted of (i) face-to-face interviews with the top management of mostly small and medium-size enterprises, which help to understand the real drivers and constraints to enterprise innovation that are hard to detect through standard surveys; (ii) Smart Labs, which are a series of business-friendly, time-efficient workshops that help assess the innovation potential of a specific economic activity; (iii) innovation maps, which help tease out information about technological trends perceived by the private sector; and (iv) crowdsourcing, online surveys that reach enterprises that usually do not interact with the public sector.
Firm-level interviews, documented here, are at the core of the EDP. Interviews aimed to identify key drivers for and constraints on small and medium-size enterprises innovation, identify the key attributes of companies that could benefit the most from public intervention, and take stock of key business and technological trends, as perceived by the companies.
More than 500 face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted by World Bank experts with companies' top management and/or owners during June 2014 - October 2015 in four regions of Poland: Dolnoslaskie, Zachodniopomorskie, Swietokrzyskie and Slaskie. Interviewed enterprises belonged to the 10 smart specialization areas selected by the Ministry of Economic Development as key priorities for Poland's innovation policy. The firms were selected using quota sampling method.
Sample survey data [ssd]
- a firm
Version
v01, edited, anonymized dataset for public distribution
The dataset comes from 511 interviews that World Bank experts conducted in 2014 and 2015 in 4 regions in Poland.
Scope
The scope of the study includes:
- firm's economic potential
- human capital
- market position
- growth constraints
- innovation processes
- innovation management
- drivers of innovation
- innovation sources
- innovation constraints
- technology usage
- financial needs
- relationship management
- place in GVC
Coverage
Four out of 16 Polish regions: Dolnoslaskie, Zachodniopomorskie, Slaskie, Swietokrzyskie
Producers and sponsors
| Name |
|---|
| Ministry of Economic Development, Poland |
| World Bank |
| Name |
|---|
| World Bank |
| European Regional Development Fund |
Sampling
The sampling frame is defined as all enterprises belonging to the 10 smart specialization areas selected by the Ministry of Economic Development as key priorities for Poland's innovation policy. The key challenge related to the sampling criteria is that definitions of the smart specializations are rather generic; thus it is not possible to precisely describe the composition of the population to which the survey applies. Furthermore, even if some assumptions are made to determine eligibility, there are no preexisting public sources containing listings of innovative firms. As a result, the survey adopts a quota sampling method, which is a non-random sampling approach. That is, units are selected into a sample on the basis of pre-specified characteristics so that the total sample has the same distribution of characteristics assumed to exist in the population being studied.
The survey sample is not random also because of the following project requirements:
- It is focused largely on small and medium-size enterprises, in line with the request of the Ministry of Economic Development. Using stratified random sampling could have addressed the non-proportional distribution of the sample, but the distribution of companies in the smart specializations is not known. Therefore, the lack of a clear sampling frame does not allow this technique to be used.
- It aims to focus on companies with a potential to be innovative and excludes firms such as restaurants, retail stores and household service establishments.
The project included in the sample a mix of companies with diverse characteristics and features that are considered important in the context of the innovation policy. Thus, the following minimum quotas were targeted:
- Micro-enterprises (less than 10 employees) - 20 percent
- Small and medium-size enterprises (between 10 and 250 employees) - 75 percent
- Large enterprises (more than 250 employees) - 5 percent
No weighting was used
Survey instrument
The questionnaire had 100 questions (80 quantitative and 20 qualitative questions) based on a conceptual model of firm innovativeness. The questionnaire was modeled on a good international practice of enterprise and innovation surveys (such as the Eurostat’s Community Innovation Survey or the EBRD’s and World Bank’s Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS)), but was extended to focus on more qualitative, contextual, and open-ended "why" questions.
Data collection
| Start | End |
|---|---|
| 2014-06 | 2015-10 |
| Name |
|---|
| Experts hired by the World Bank |
| Regional consultants |
More than 500 interviews were carried out by 11 experts within the time span of the project. The regional consultants, who were trained during the project, performed additional 135 interviews. There was an approximately equal division of interviews across the four participating regions, with at least 100 done in each of them. The project's pilot phase took place from June 2014 till March 2015 and comprised about 160 interviews. This delivered preliminary results and led to the modification of the project approach in the remaining three regions.
Unlike most surveys conducted by the national statistical office and international institutions, the interviews were conducted face to face with the company's top management and/or owners. The interviews usually took about 2 to 2.5 hours and were based on a questionnaire with quantitative and qualitative questions. Each interview was summarized in a “one pager” by the interviewing expert. The experts separated the interviewed firms, based on their expert judgment and a number of key innovative attributes, into five categories: "champions," "emerging champions," "sleeping beauties," "steady state," and "declining." At the end of each interview, the firm receives feedback from the expert. Data from each interview are aggregated and analyzed for policy insights.
Identification of firms that would meet the project's criteria and setting up interviews turned out to be a resource-intensive process. The calendar of meetings changed at a rapid pace and required a lot of flexibility on the side of the Bank's experts and regional consultants. It was also difficult to gather sufficient prior information about each company to ensure that the interview would meet the project's objective. The Bank used multiple sources of information to schedule interviews, including databases from business support institutions, marshal offices, and a proprietary firm dataset. These sources were helpful, although they had a limited number of firms that matched the project criteria and the 10 specializations selected for the project. For that reason, referrals from the interviewed companies for follow-up meetings with firms in the same value chain (customers, competitors, and suppliers) proved productive and are likely to be one of the main sources of information about potential candidates for interviews.
Depositor information
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Jerzy Toborowicz | World Bank |
Data Access
| Is signing of a confidentiality declaration required? |
|---|
| no |
Use of the dataset must be acknowledged using a citation which would include:
- the Identification of the Primary Investigator
- the title of the survey (including country, acronym and year of implementation)
- the survey reference number
- the source and date of download
Example:
Poland Ministry of Economic Development, World Bank. Poland Entrepreneurial Discovery Process Project 2014, Firm Interviews. Ref. POL_2014_EDPFI_v01_M. Dataset downloaded from [URL] on [date].
Disclaimer and copyrights
This material was produced with support from the World Bank. The findings, interpretation, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.
Contacts
| Name | Affiliation | |
|---|---|---|
| Jerzy Toborowicz | World Bank | jtoborowicz@worldbank.org |
Metadata production
DDI_POL_2014_EDPFI_v01_M_WB
| Name | Affiliation | Role |
|---|---|---|
| Development Data Group | World Bank | Study documentation |
2016-08-12
Metadata version
v01 (August 2016)