The Role of Competitors and Customers in the Development of Environmentally Sound Technologies

The article presents two important forces influencing the development of produinnovations by suppliers of environmentally sound technologies, namely competitoand consumers. It discusses these phenomena on the basis of different theoreticapproaches (Ansoff and Stewart, 1967; Von Hippel, 1987, 2005, 2007; Prahalad anRamaswamy, 2004). The results of the study show that Polish companies-suppliers environmentally sound technologies are willing to gain inspiration from both demanand supply side market players. In case of supply side of the market, in most casinspiration was not aimed at copying existing successful ideas. The competitors aperceived rather as a source of inspiration for further development of technologicsolutions. Although companies concentrate on having a relationship with customers and track their behavior, these relations have not been established by the Policompanies researched here in order to treat users as co-creators of product improvments or novelties.