Resentment Barriers to Innovation Development of Small and Medium Enterprises in Upper Silesia

Abstract

The first aim of the article is to diagnose the barriers of agency (including resentment ones) that occur during the implementation of innovations in the selected Silesian small and medium-sized enterprises. The second goal is to explain how the structural and cultural resentment contexts and the type of reflexivity undertaken by the employees determine an innovative activity in the state of morphostasis (contextual continuity) and morphogenesis (contextual discontinuity) at selected companies. The theoretical basis of the research is Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic theory of structure and agency and her scheme of causal analysis. Based on this and using the qualitative analysis of data obtained during focus group interviews (FGI), a diagnosis is made regarding the presence of agency barriers in the innovation processes. A morphogenetic causal analysis of the emergence of agency barriers limiting the course of innovation processes in a business reality burdened with resentment contexts has been presented. On the theoretical and empirical level, the usefulness of the morphogenetic schema in the study of organizational behavior in small and medium enterprises was verified. Conducting diachronic causal analyzes among employees of selected SMEs made it possible to show the conditions between the scope of the existing resentment barriers (structural and cultural), the type of dominant reflexivity among their members, and the possibilities of innovation in these organizations. It has been shown that in organizational contexts burdened with group resentments, the agency of staff is mainly morphostatic. The dominant type of reflexivity (communicative, not autonomous) is focused on maintaining the existing contextual continuity and not on changing it. The results obtained from the research will allow the implementation of educational and implementation projects (research in action) in the future, adequate to the needs of the small and medium enterprise sector in terms of eliminating resentments in the structure and organizational culture. These aims will be implemented through the participation of external expert groups in the following areas of innovation of a given company: pro-innovative attitudes, competencies, processes, and strategies, perception of the environment, customer orientation, or branding.