Innovation as an Attribute of the Sustainable Development of Pharmaceutical Companies

Abstract

An orientation towards strengthening the competitiveness of enterprises through an effective response to market expectations is nowadays associated with sustainable development. Despite the articulation of the role of innovative solutions in this respect, the literature has not sufficiently explored this issue. Hence, the aim of the article was to analyse the impact of innovation on the sustainable development of enterprises in the pharmaceutical sector operating in the market in Poland. For the purposes of this study, the scope and spectrum of reference for innovative solutions in pharmaceutical entities was diagnosed based on the results of a diagnostic survey. In part of the in-depth study, an assessment of the impact of innovation on the sustainable development of the surveyed enterprises was conducted. The above was performed using appropriately selected methods of a qualitative and quantitative nature, including economic analytical techniques (cause-effect analysis, dependency analysis). The research sample was made up of companies operating on the pharmaceutical market in Poland; therefore, the results of the research refer only to these entities and there are no grounds for transferring them to the general population of enterprises in this sector in the country under study. This paper’s findings indicate that the idea of creating added value, growing out of a broad concern for social, environmental and economic aspects, is determined by an innovative approach that enhances environmental security, responding to societal expectations, while at the same time aiming to maximise the economic impact on activities. Companies that invest more heavily in innovation achieve better results in sustainable development, as confirmed by research. Companies are aware of this and are directing development expenditure into solutions that strengthen their ability to respond effectively to market expectations, with the strongest implementation of the above based on product innovation.

1. Introduction

The development of modern companies is determined by technical and technological progress, setting the direction of the evolution of civilisation. Concern for the future of the planet determines the trend of changes, triggering the search for innovative solutions enabling sustainable development to achieve social, environmental and economic goals. Moreover, the above is a determinant of the orientation of contemporary business models towards sustainability, enabling a more precise response to the increasingly complex expectations of stakeholders.

An integrated approach to social, environmental and economic challenges is not contradictory. The implementation of activities with a focus on increasing alignment with societal expectations, caring for the environment with a simultaneous focus on enhancing the economic efficiency of processes is possible with innovative solutions at the management, organisational or technical–technological level. The above contributes to increasing the responsibility of the business for its activities, carried out with an assurance of transparency [1] that strengthens business credibility, which is nowadays a source of market advantage.

Balancing social, environmental and economic objectives continues to be a significant challenge for modern businesses, and an absolute necessity. The pressure from the economic environment [2] to strengthen pro-ecological solutions by meeting the expectations of the beneficiaries of economic activity is increasing, which necessitates the continuous revision of adopted operational practices [3] towards increasingly sustainable solutions. The focus on selecting innovative solutions to ensure the above is increasingly observed in business practice. This is taking the form of implementing innovations oriented towards environmental performance management or drawing on innovative solutions of key social or economic importance [4]. Drawing on the solutions in question contributes significantly to increasing an organisation’s degree of development towards sustainability [5].

The role of innovation in the promotion of sustainable practices in contemporary business appears to be crucial. This is because everything new in a company (innovation) [6] should, as a rule, be in line with current development trends and expectations for the environment. Hence, the search for explanations of the impact of innovation on the sustainable development of enterprises was considered reasonable. It was considered particularly interesting and useful for the purposes of this research to orient the cognitive efforts towards the pharmaceutical industry—with a significant environmental impact, in combination with the idea of health-oriented production.

In the sphere of the effectiveness of sustainability implementation, the literature most often examines the goals of the DSGs and the extent to which they are being achieved in relation to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [7]. In addition, there are numerous studies on the impact of pandemics on the need to strengthen the innovation dimension in pharmaceuticals and the actual analysis of trends in this area [8]. In research in the field of innovation by pharmaceutical companies, particular emphasis has been placed for years on the study of the impact of innovations on the physical impact of these innovations on the advancement of technologies used in pharmaceuticals in terms of therapeutic efficacy [9], or the provision of environmental protection [10]. The study of economic aspects in these studies is also important [11], with a particular focus on the economic efficiency of innovations [12]. Other aspects of the economic objectives of innovation are explored in relation to the objectives in the area of other pillars of sustainable development [13]. In this research approach, the reference to sustainable development (in strategic terms) creates, as a rule, only a research background for the presented areas, in particular with regard to the study of companies operating on the Polish pharmaceutical market. Hence, while referring to studies on the assessment of the impact of innovation on the widely understood effectiveness of pharmaceutical companies [14], or the study of the impact of innovation on sustainable development as one of the many determinants of this process [15], the author of this paper paid attention to an isolated analysis of the impact of the innovation of companies on sustainable development. In this respect, it was considered interesting to examine the impact of innovation inputs on the sustainability of firms. The scope and strength of the impact of such captured innovation on the sustainable development of pharmaceutical companies has not been exhaustively explained in the literature, in particular with the application of the adopted approach at the level of pharmaceutical companies operating in the market in Poland.

The research concept adopted is strengthened by the approach of A. J. Bock et al. [16], who identified innovation at the organisational level as a key business competence for sustainable development, which is also highlighted in the research by K. -M. Chuang et al. [17]. Considering the impact of innovation on the sustainability of companies, a quantitative and qualitative approach in a causal study provides an overall dimension to the findings, providing a basis for inferring the effectiveness of the adopted development strategies of the studied companies and their business competences for sustainability. The need for a holistic approach in similar studies is articulated in the literature [8,18], and the paper presented here is oriented towards a multifaceted approach in this regard.

The author considered the impact of innovation on the sustainable development of companies to be crucial. The extent and strength of the impact of this determinant on sustainable development has not been exhaustively explained in the literature, in particular at the level of pharmaceutical companies operating in the market in Poland. The above reinforces the need for the adopted research direction, which further argues the importance of the pharmaceutical industry in the social and economic dimension of the country examined in this study (social health and GDP).

With reference to the above, the analysis of the impact of innovativeness on the sustainable development of Polish pharmaceutical companies—on a sample of seven entities accepted for this study, dealing with the production and distribution of pharmaceutical products at the national and international level—has been adopted as the general objective of this paper.

The sub-objectives of this paper relate to explaining the nature of the sustainable development of enterprises, as well as discussing the role of innovative solutions in sustainable development, together with diagnosing the scope and spectrum of innovative solutions in pharmaceutical companies.

The layout of this paper’s objectives determined its structure:

-

Section 1 introduction;

-

Section 2 literature review;

-

Section 3 research results (qualitative and quantitative);

-

Section 4 discussion;

-

Section 5 summary and conclusions.

The scope of this study creates its limitations. The content and conclusions of the findings made it possible to make inferences in terms of the adopted objective, in response to the identified information gap.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Sustainability in Corporate Operations—Sustainable Business Models and Sustainable Value Creation

The issue of corporate sustainability features is evident in current scientific discourse. This research is justified by the growing need to increase action targeted at environmental protection, with particular attention to the social dimension [19]. According to this idea, the improvement of human existence (civilisational development) is to be realised in a way that does not generate negative consequences for subsequent generations [20], which is to be ensured by orienting efforts towards the simultaneous fulfilment of social, environmental and economic goals. In this activity, the system of advantages is included in a balanced package of values created for the good of all stakeholders of business activities [21]. According to this, business development must be carried out responsibly—respecting the laws of economic calculation in fulfilling social needs, but also in harmony with nature.

The strongly articulated requirement to balance the economic, social and, above all, environmental planes triggers a stronger need than before to seek solutions [22] that enable a secure existence [23] in the socio-economic sphere [24]. The multifaceted nature of the challenges that companies face contributes to their management style, framed in terms of thinking and acting from a goal-balancing perspective, which is reflected in contemporary business concepts. The sustainable business models in question, by integrating objectives [25] of the three pillars of responsible development, ensure that economic efforts are conducted in a way that safeguards the interests of all stakeholders. A strongly emphasised formula in the literature that is oriented towards enhancing the effectiveness of sustainable actions is ESG, where the basis for considering business effects is created jointly by the expectations of the corporate environment (E), social demands and security (S) and the economic effect on action (G) [26]. In this respect, it is important to minimise the negative impact on the environment (discharges and emissions), reduce the capital intensity of processes by optimising resource consumption and practising responsible waste management, including recycling. These conditions determine the formation of the ideal relationship with the environment by fulfilling expectations in a responsible manner. Importantly, the formal and legal context determines the path of sustainable development [27], creating a set of requirements for the business sphere globally [28,29,30]. The orientation towards sustainable value, created and offered in the process [31], is therefore in line with the expected direction of business action and development today. The degree of organisational sophistication in the implementation of sustainable development assumptions determines the modelling of the image of a responsible enterprise. At the same time, the way to effectively and responsibly conduct business is through innovation, enabling the displacement of outdated practices (organisational, technological or production) with a negative impact on the environment, with the simultaneous possibility of improving the quality of the offer and promoting consumer responsibility, based on conscious purchasing choices. The direction presented seems to be an essential condition for strengthening the competitiveness of enterprises today. The above creates a research thread, captured in hypothesis 1:

Hypothesis 1 (H₁): 

Pharmaceutical companies strongly orient their adopted business models towards sustainability.

2.2. Innovation in Sustainable Business Development

The idea of the sustainable development of organisations in the economic aspect involves the challenge of systematising and standardising the mechanisms of action in a direction that ensures the integration of objectives in the social and environmental dimensions, in a way that does not prevent the simultaneous achievement of economic objectives. The above is an essential reference for improving processes and increasing company competence, providing a basis for achieving goals [1] in the reality of the resource–environmental crisis [23,32,33] and unrelenting social needs, including, inter alia, in the sphere of public health. The need to seek solutions to these challenges is directing adopted business models towards green innovation [34]. In this respect, green technologies [35] play a key role, significantly enhancing the ability to achieve sustainable goals [36] and strengthening competitiveness [37] in the turbulent realities of modern business [38].

Innovation takes on a multifaceted character [39] and at the organisational level takes on a number of guises. The key ones include organisational innovations—aimed at strengthening the overall efficiency of operations, technical–technological innovations—oriented towards finding solutions to improve technologies and production methods, or product innovations, whose primary objective is to offer a broadly understood new or improved set of value (added value) in the process of fulfilling social needs and economic expectations [39]. The innovation of solutions creates the potential to strengthen the profitability of the company and improve its valuation parameters [40,41], as well as offer higher benefits to stakeholders [15]. These benefits take on particular importance in pharmaceutical production in light of global challenges in the area of disease prevention and control, with currently unavailable or imperfect treatment solutions. This aspect, furthermore, relates to the availability of socially demanded products or services. Innovative solutions contribute to optimising solutions, creating the potential for higher productivity, increasing the availability of a range of products in the market, as well as improving the economics of production, increasing the availability of medicines in economic terms. Thus, innovation drives development in a responsive direction, providing the opportunity to fulfil socio-economic needs in response to ever higher market demands, creating a stronger set of market opportunities at the enterprise level [39]. Innovation integrates the modernisation of economic activities, reducing their negative impact on the environment and supporting the implementation of positive changes in society [42] and the promotion of a new, responsible view of reality. Hence, the role of innovation in sustainable development appears to be invaluable. The above strengthens the research thread captured in hypothesis 2:

Hypothesis 2 (H₂): 

Innovation is a key determinant of the sustainability of pharmaceutical companies.

2.3. Measuring the Innovativeness of Enterprises

The literature strongly emphasises the importance of innovation in the development of companies, considered through the prism of shaping their profitability potential—as pointed out by, among others, K. Daniel and S. Titman [40]. Similarly, the role of firms’ innovation in modelling their market value is significantly emphasised, as articulated by A. Duqi and G. Torluccio, among others [41]. In both aspects, it is important to properly estimate the rates of return on investment in innovation activities, as shown by, among others, K. Melnarowicz [43] or B. Socha [44]. The problem of the market valuation of the innovative activity of enterprises is a complex issue, which is not a new problem—this theme was emphasised in studies by, among others, B. H. Hall [45]. The issue still concerns the investment phase of innovation, before the effect is realised after implementation. The situation in this respect is already changed by the announcement of the innovation, which allows its effect to be measurably captured in a market evaluation, as articulated by A. C. Eberhart et al. [46]. This is because innovation is associated with change [47]—a new solution or a significant improvement [47], contributing to an increase in the degree of market expectations [48], as well as a measurable improvement in the functioning of enterprises [49]. Hence, the very information about the implementation of an innovation contributes to strengthening the image of a modern enterprise, consolidating its position among competitors.

The actual measurement of the degree of innovation at the level of enterprises is made at the stage of the marketisation of innovation, enabling the estimation of the economic benefits of this measure [50]. The above provides the basis for the determination of the input–effect relationship, captured in the measurement of the rate of return on the investment, so understood [43,49], or in a dependency study. Dependency analysis in this area is based on the study of the correlation of the amount of outlays on innovation to changes in the volume of revenue from sales or the size of employment to determine the innovation index, elements of which were used, among others, by B. Socha [44]. An alternative approach determines the relationship of innovation expenditures to changes in share price (e.g., S. H. Penman and X. Zhang [51]). These measurement concepts are practised, inter alia, in creating numerous rankings of innovative companies.

Other approaches to estimating the innovativeness of firms are pointed out as follows:

-

C. Lin et al., capturing its measurement in the number of patents [52];

-

M. Gittelman, considering its spectrum in relation to the number of patent references [53];

-

M. Kafouros et al. [54] or Y. Wang et al. [55], orienting its scope to the measurement of the number of new innovative products, or Ch. Rammer, focusing its findings on the number of new or improved products [56];

-

P. Gupta, relating the measurement to the scope of innovation [57];

-

A. Zablocka-Abi Yaghi and T. Tomaszewski, seeing its essence in the scale of process improvements at the organisational level [58];

-

K. J. Mayer et al. referring its measurement to the degree of strengthening of the technical–technological dimension of the organisation [59].

A review of the literature further indicates relational approaches, referring to a financial spectrum of measures, such as the following [60]:

-

innovation estimated in terms of the ratio of new product profit to revenue;

-

innovation determined as the ratio of profit on sales of new products to profit on total sales;

-

innovation established in the relation of sales revenue to gross margin.

A measure with a broader dimension, relating to the ongoing process of investment in innovation, is the measurement of development expenditures, articulated, among others, by Y. Wang et al. [55]. An interesting approach to the measurement of innovation is practised by McKinsey, using quantitative and qualitative indicators to assess innovation, in a method depending on the direction of strategy focus, as follows [61]:

-

in the case of a strategy orientation towards shareholder value creation, the revenue side of the business and customer satisfaction play a key role in measuring innovation;

-

in the case of an organisation’s innovation-oriented strategy, customer satisfaction, the number of innovation challenges in the organisation and development expenditures, calculated in relation to sales volume, play a key role in its estimation.

Another dimension of innovation measurement is the findings of the firm innovation maturity index (WDI), which is a synthetic measure built from variables established in the area of four categories (infrastructure and management, relational capital, return on innovation and innovation environment), the measurement of which is based on a quantitative and qualitative survey [62].

A review of the literature indicates the multiplicity of approaches in estimating firm innovation. It should be noted, however, that combining qualitative and quantitative strands is relatively limited in measurement practice. The above indicates the need to look for solutions in the sphere of innovation estimation for the general evaluation of its impact on firm development. The above anchors the research thread captured in hypothesis 3:

Hypothesis 3 (H₃): 

A qualitative–quantitative innovation measurement methodology is useful for assessing the extent to which pharmaceutical companies are committed to sustainability.

3. Materials and Methods

The layout of this paper determined its purpose. The findings of this paper took on an analytical and empirical character. The initial part of this paper is the conceptual stage. The next part of this paper was oriented towards a synthetic review of the literature and research findings in the area explored. The literature was extracted from leading databases, such as Google Scholar, Web of Science and Scopus, among others, using the keywords and their combinations adopted for this study. This part of the study focused on the core issues related to the topic being explored; in order to present the research background for the hypotheses established.

An economic field of key importance in socio-economic terms, considered at the level of national economies and internationally, is the pharmaceutical sector. This contributed to the selection of this group of enterprises for research purposes in the sphere of the impact of innovation on sustainable enterprise development, with particular emphasis on pharmaceutical enterprises operating in the market in Poland.

The study of the innovativeness of companies accepted for this study was based on a diagnostic survey (voluntary and anonymous) conducted in October 2024 on a sample of 7 pharmaceutical entities operating in the market in Poland, which expressed interest in the diagnostic study. The selection of the research sample is purposive, as the reference entities are the subject of a broader study conducted by the author of the presented article. Pre-enterprises were selected from the original set of 96 enterprises, qualifying them into a population of 18 enterprises performing well and very well in their activities, with a strong pro-development orientation towards sustainability, considered on several levels—there is more on this in the relevant publication [15]. The scope of this research was oriented towards the diagnosis of selected management threads, captured in 32 issues. Only the scope relating to sustainable management and innovation, captured in 7 issues and presented and discussed in the next section of the paper, was used in this research. The area and scope of this study create its limitations. The content and conclusions of this study respond to the identified information gap in the area of the explored issues.

The in-depth analysis was based on publicly available financial data of the surveyed companies for the period 2021–2023. The analysis was performed in the following order:

• Step one was to determine the innovation orientation of the companies.

For the purposes of this research, innovation is defined as new or improved solutions at the company level that directly or indirectly lead to or enhance the achievement of DSGs at the company level.

In measuring the innovativeness of enterprises, a measurable indicator for assessing performance in this sphere is adopted, measured by the number of innovations or improvements generated in a given period, or a more generalised formula oriented towards measuring the volume of innovation expenditures in a given period. In the author’s opinion, a more authoritative formula for measuring innovativeness—adequate to the scope of the research and available data—is the analysis of expenditures on innovation. The above can be enriched with a cash flow account in this respect (at the level of individual enterprise level measurement), which will increase the possibility of analysing the innovation dimension at an early stage, even before it is market oriented. However, based on the available enterprise data, it was not possible to develop the measurement towards a flow account, which created research limitations. Therefore, for the purpose of this research, the innovation expenditures (Average Innovation Expenditures—AIE) were determined in the medium term—for the period 2021–2023, in the following relation:

$$AIE={\displaystyle \frac{Average innovation expenditures over a given period}{Average investment outlays over the period}}$$

(1)

Data for financial findings were obtained from the Notoria financial service.

2.

The next step of this study was oriented towards determining the impact of innovation on the sustainability performance of the companies studied. This study took the form of a dependency analysis followed by a comparative analysis. This step made use of the data obtained in the diagnostic survey (presented in the first research step), which were juxtaposed with the results of the findings in the financial sphere. The research findings generated in the steps so far have made it possible to analyse the impact of activities on the sustainability results achieved, taking into account the innovation factor.

3.

The next step of this study was aimed at examining the degree of interrelationships between the studied variables, i.e., the impact of innovativeness (variable X) on the results of the studied enterprises in the area of sustainable development (variable Y), using the Pearson correlation coefficient, in accordance with the relationship:

$$r\left(X,Y\right)={\displaystyle \frac{\sum _{t=1}^n{(x}_1-\overline{x})\pm (y_t-\overline{y)}}{\sqrt{{\sum }_{t=1}^n(x_1}-\overline{x)2{\sum }_{t=1}^n{y}_t-\overline{y)2}}}}$$

(2)

where $\overline{x }$ and $\overline{y}$ represent arithmetic means of feature values X and Y, respectively [63].

The strength of the convergence is described by the results obtained for r in the following ranges:

-

0.0–0.2 no correlation;

-

0.2–0.4 weak correlation;

-

0.4–0.7 moderate correlation;

-

0.7–0.9 strong correlation;

-

0.9–1.0 very strong correlation.

The adopted research design and methodology are adapted to the scope of this study and ensure reliable conclusions based on the adopted hypotheses. The content and conclusions of this study respond to the identified information gap in the area of the issue explored.

The area and scope of this study create its limitations. It should be noted that the results developed, as a whole, refer only to the sample of the surveyed enterprises and cannot be generalised to the population of pharmaceutical enterprises operating in the market in Poland.

4. Results

4.1. Development Orientations of Pharmaceutical Enterprises—Preliminary Analysis

The results of the analysis of industry reports and the characteristics of companies posted on their publicly available web profiles indicate that the activities of pharmaceutical companies operating on the Polish market are generally in line with current business challenges, created in accordance with the idea of sustainable development. They are generally associated with an orientation towards strengthening the innovativeness of operations, with a particular focus on improving technical and technological solutions, contributing to the improvement of widely considered production safety, as well as enhancing the efficiency of processes, influencing a greater economic justification of conducted business activities. In this respect, the objectives of innovation activities correspond closely to the challenges of balancing the objectives in the economic, environmental and social spheres, orienting activities towards the following:

-

reducing the carbon footprint, by decarbonising production due to the implementation of green technologies;

-

reducing the resource intensity of production, including rational energy management, combined with its acquisition from renewable sources;

-

increasing the rational use of resources to improve performance in the environmental (natural resources), social (human resources) and economic (financial resources) spheres;

-

improving the supply of pharmaceuticals to meet the current social demand for medical treatment, including, in particular, the treatment of civilisation diseases as well as rare diseases;

-

improving pharmaceutical production in terms of the broadly understood quality of medicines, including therapeutic efficacy and safety of use;

-

improving production solutions in order to increase the availability of medicines on the market, in terms of the appropriate volume of medicines placed on the market (production capacity) and the social accessibility of a range of medicines (affordability of medicines);

-

improving sustainable employer solutions—enhancing aspects of a safe, green working environment and improving sustainable HR practices;

-

optimising practices in order to improve the economics of operations and improve the business impact;

-

improving the business image by reinforcing the implementation of sustainability goals to increase stakeholder confidence.

The spectrum of challenges created by the market for the pharmaceutical sector in the area of sustainability is extremely broad and significant. This emerges against the background of the general membership of the chemical industry, which is significantly associated with the risk of harmful discharges and emissions into the environment in connection with production. This industry affiliation, however, is juxtaposed with a set of societal expectations, growing out of the idea of a pharmaceutical business oriented towards the protection of human life and health, to cure rather than poison and treat. Strengthening the sustainable orientation of this industry is therefore extremely important, as it contributes significantly to reinforcing a sustainable set of values in a cooperative arrangement for the benefit of its recipients. The above shapes the sustainable awareness of producers and suppliers, as well as consumers of pharmaceutical products, contributing to the strengthening of green practices at each level of market existence, emphasising their importance in institutional (producers) and individual (consumers) dimensions. The success of the implementation of the idea outlined is determined by the degree of understanding and the level of acceptance; hence, research in the area of business practice in this regard is justified and important.

4.2. Diagnosis of Companies’ Orientation Towards Sustainability and Innovation—Analysis of Survey Results

General environmental goals and the need to implement sustainable actions are fully realised in Polish pharmaceutical companies, and are accepted and included in their strategies. The above was confirmed by the results of our own research (diagnostic survey), conducted in December 2024 on a group of seven companies operating on the Polish pharmaceutical market (pharmaceutical production and distribution at the national and international level). The findings in question indicate a full (100%) acceptance by enterprises of the need to conduct sustainable activities. All surveyed companies show full (100%) acceptance of the validity of the idea of sustainable development and the need to set targets that bring them closer to zero carbon. This confirms the high awareness among companies of the responsibility of pharmaceutical businesses.

In terms of assessing the completeness of the activities, relative to existing potential and captured in the sustainable management at the company level, overall 71.42% of the surveyed entities indicated their completeness (adequacy in relation to requirements) in general and 28.57% of those surveyed indicated an existing, realised potential for improvement of a complementary nature. The detailed results in this respect are shown in Figure 1.

The results of the research in this area indicate a high level of competence in the sphere of sustainable management, supported by evolution in the sphere of sustainable development activities. Importantly, the potential for strengthening this dimension of action is directly linked to strengthening the degree of innovation of solutions, which is linked to the investment processes implemented.

In the area of the study of priorities, defined in sustainable development models based on innovation, the overall study found the following:

-

57.14% of respondents indicated the critical importance of the social aspect, linked to the safety and efficacy of the medicine, pointing next to the economic and environmental aspect;

-

28.57% of respondents indicated the critical importance of the social aspect, linked to the efficacy and safety of the medicine, indicating next the environmental aspect and lastly the economic aspect;

-

14.28% of respondents indicated the financial aspect, followed by the social and environmental aspects;

-

none of the companies surveyed indicated that the environmental aspect was of key importance, followed by the importance of the social and economic aspects in equal measure.

The results in this regard are shown in Figure 2.

The results of the research in this area indicate that activities to care for the temporal health of society assume the highest importance in the pharmaceutical industry. Pro-development activities are subordinated to this priority. The results of the findings in this area in general indicate the following:

-

product innovation—reinforcing the safety aspect—assumes the most significant importance among innovation efforts undertaken at the company level—57.14% of indications;

-

technical–technological innovation (organisational dimension), oriented at reducing resource and energy intensity, assumes significant importance—42.85% of indications;

-

innovation, touching upon other spheres, was considered important and necessary, but was given a supplementary character (without clear indications).

The results in this respect are presented in Figure 3.

An examination of the level of the overall rationality of resource use, based on the current state of technical and technological solutions at the disposal of companies, revealed the following indications in general:

-

57.14% of respondents indicated a satisfactory level of this dimension of management;

-

28.57% of respondents indicated the need to improve this dimension of operations;

-

14.28% of respondents did not give a clear answer in this respect.

Interestingly, in this dimension, the rationality of the use of components for pharmaceutical production was indicated, while at the same time there was a need to improve the use of other groups of resources (including specialised equipment, software and human resources, among others).

An important observation resulting from this research is the finding that the orientation towards conscious choices in the purchasing process, taking into account the analysis of a wide range of environmental parameters (substance characteristics, packaging, transport, etc.) is considered a significant determinant of the effectiveness of achieving sustainable development goals. It should be emphasized that the above, at the current level of technical and technological development of the surveyed companies, is not strongly dependent on the potential to strengthen their innovative solutions. This dimension was indicated in general by 14.28% of respondents. The leading categories in this area were considered to be education and strengthening the competences of the personnel responsible for purchasing, which is confirmed by the majority of the remaining respondents (71.42%). Indications for the arrangement of determinants outside the above-mentioned areas amounted to 14.28% in general. The study of the direction of strengthening the innovativeness of actions for the improvement of sustainable development, in general (multiple choice), revealed the following:

-

the absolute majority of respondents indicate investments in clean, green energy (71.42%), which is certainly motivated by the current situation of the energy market in Poland, determining additional economic motivation for such action;

-

a very significant portion of respondents (57.14%) indicate the direction of organizational improvement with the use of new technologies in improving processes in the value chain (including EI);

-

28.57% of respondents indicated technical and technological innovation, including in particular, resource improvement;

-

14.28% of respondents indicated strengthening the attributes of a green, innovative work environment.

The detailed results in this area are presented in Figure 4.

The results of the presented research indicate that the management strategies of the pharmaceutical companies surveyed orient their activities in a direction consistent with the idea of sustainable development. This orientation refers to key values and activities in an area where concern for the consumer (via safe and effective medicines) is intertwined with efforts to protect the natural environment and the interests of the organization.

4.3. Measuring Impact of Corporate Innovation on Sustainability—In-Depth Analysis

According to the indications of the surveyed companies, the expenditures on innovative solutions range from 37% to 77% of the investment outlays. Figure 1 compares the above indications with the results of the evaluation of the completeness of solutions practiced in sustainable management. It visualizes the relationship between the volume of expenditures on innovation and the degree of the completeness of sustainable management—Figure 5.

This study confirms the impact of expenditures in the sphere of innovation on the results of enterprises, obtained in the sphere of sustainable management. The analysis of individual indications indicates that enterprises investing more strongly in innovation achieve better results in the sphere of sustainable development. The above indicates that the parameters studied are converging. The interdependence of the quantitative characteristics studied was subjected to a correlation test; in order to assess the interrelationships. For this purpose, the Pearson correlation coefficient was used, which for the variables under study yielded a result of 0.7694, indicating an average level of their convergence. The distribution of the interdependence of the variables is presented in Figure 6.

The findings on the scope of expenditures on innovation in the general portfolio of investment expenditures based on the financial data of companies are presented in Figure 7. The average expenditure on innovative solutions was at the level of 57.57%.

The findings regarding the share of expenditure on key innovation dimensions in the overall volume of investment expenditure confirm the adopted direction of the development of the surveyed companies. The main direction of enterprise innovation is product innovation; the average expenditure of which, in the overall investment expenditure in the surveyed group of companies, is 32.89%, while expenditure on technical and technological innovation is 24.66%. A detailed summary of the results in this area is presented in Figure 8.

The findings in the presented data set, juxtaposed with the results of the analysis of the relevance of pro-development activities (Figure 3), give rise to an analysis of the distribution of interdependencies in the diagnosed types of innovation (product, technical–technological and other innovation—aggregate approach). The variables were subjected to an interdependence test using Pearson’s correlation coefficient, which, with a result of 0.0633, indicates that they are not correlated. The distribution of the dispositional interdependencies is presented in Figure 9.

In-depth research, using the financial spectrum of measures, confirmed the relationship between the amount of innovation expenditure and the level of results achieved in the sphere of sustainable development. The analysis in this respect is complemented by the distribution of outlays in the key innovation dimensions of the surveyed companies, driving sustainable development—according to the identified significance key. The results of the correlation study confirmed the relationship occurring between (total) innovation expenditures and sustainability performance at the medium level. This gives rise to the claim that strengthening innovation solutions steers companies towards sustainability. The lack of correlation between the different types of innovation outlays allows the conclusion to be drawn that, in terms of supporting development through innovation, outlays in differentiated innovation dimensions are important. This is a logical observation, as the sustainable development of companies should be realised through a broad spectrum of activities to ensure that economic, social and environmental goals are achieved simultaneously.

5. Discussion

Innovation is a key attribute for the development of modern companies. It is a multidimensional issue and, inter alia, against this background it is difficult to measure, as emphasised by S. D. Anthony et al. [64]. A. Wodecka-Hyjek draws attention to the fact that there is no synthetic measure in this respect [65]. A review of the literature on the subject proves that there are a number of measures for estimating innovativeness. As A. Szulczewska-Remi notes, the methods of measuring the innovativeness of enterprises in traditional terms do not fully reflect their impact on the development of the organisation [60], while agreeing with the position presented by C. Cruz-Cázares et al. [66] that this measurement should not be based on a single indicator.

The consideration of business innovation should be linked to the financial side of the business. This is because their implementation is supposed to strengthen the economic effect of the activity, hence capturing the measure of profit from the introduction of innovative solutions to the market and its juxtaposition with, for example, gross sales profit (J. Guan et al. [67]) or with, for example, the volume of revenues (K. Melnarowicz [43]) is fully justified. In assessing the revenue feature of innovation, the aspect of the margin level that can be earned in the process of marketing a new or changed product range is important [68]. The measurement of innovation from the overhead side was adopted in the study by Y. Wang et al. [55]. At the same time, T. Geodecki points out that development expenditures are only an element of innovation expenditures and do not necessarily initiate them [69].

Measuring innovation through the lens of inputs in combination with the return aspect of the investment is commonly adopted to assess innovation considered through the lens of the effectiveness of the process. The measure of effect in this respect is the estimation of the rate of return on investments in innovation, as articulated by S. D. Anthony et al. [64]. However, measuring the innovativeness of companies should furthermore reflect the ongoing direction of the organisation’s transformation in relation to the implementation of innovation. Sustainable development can be considered such a direction, as a major part of innovation solutions focus on increasing stakeholder benefits, considered through the prism of achieving social, economic and environmental goals. Hence, this study is oriented towards such findings, where measuring the impact of innovation on the sustainable development of enterprises seems to be justified. The pattern of innovation activity expenditures, isolated from capital expenditures on a scale as estimated by the companies, was used as a reference for the findings in the causal analysis. The above was juxtaposed with the level of sustainable management, as established in the diagnostic survey. Research in this area was inspired by the trend of combining financial and non-financial measures, captured in qualitative–quantitative measurement. Although the main problem with approaches that take into account qualitative data extracted from companies is the risk of subjectivity in the capture of innovation [60], creating a research limitation, the juxtaposition of such data with parameters drawn from the financial spectrum of measures offers the possibility of making early estimates in the area of complex categories, through the existing potential of being able to enrich the above with a cash flow account of innovation activities, identifiable at the company level. The presented dual approach to estimating the innovativeness of enterprises informatively enriches the study. It enables a wider spectrum of inference, creating its added value. The above makes it possible to answer research questions of an important nature for the evaluation of enterprises, e.g., regarding the impact of innovation on sustainability results.

Establishing measures of innovation estimation provides a relatively broad spectrum of measurement; hence, their selection should be related to the adopted estimation objective. Furthermore, relying solely on input or output measures of innovation reveals a narrowed spectrum of evaluation; hence, it is reasonable to supplement their spectrum with process evaluation measures [70], which are available and useful for measurement purposes. At the same time, any measurement fosters the self-reflection of companies, provides a reference in the goal creation process and motivates action, as emphasised by S. Nilsson and S. Ritzén [71], and this informative purpose guides the study presented in this paper. Importantly, innovation orientation and useful knowledge in the sphere of performance outcomes in the area in question significantly shapes the culture of the organisation, strengthening its unique competences. Important in this area is knowledge sharing and organisational learning, as pointed out by J. Abbas et al. [72]. The above influences the level of motivation of the staff [73], which is significantly responsible for innovation performance, increasing its potential. This mechanism determines the effectiveness of the implemented mission of companies, especially pharmaceutical companies. Hence, extracting information from the area of innovation estimation using dual quantitative–qualitative formulas can enrich the dimension of knowledge sharing, which can become an internal driving force significantly improving innovation performance in the competitive environment of pharmaceutical companies, as highlighted by S.S.M. Yuen and H.Y., among others. Lam [74]. The above is reflected in the contemporary business models of pharmaceutical companies [15], which fully justifiy the approach used in the presented study.

6. Summary and Conclusions

The results of this study indicate that the activities of pharmaceutical companies operating in the market in Poland are carried out in a responsible manner. It grows out of an awareness of activities currently demanded by the market, in which social and environmental challenges are effectively combined with economic objectives. In this respect, there is a strong orientation towards sustainable development, in which the primary objective is to respond effectively to the fulfilment of social objectives, related to activities to protect human life and health. However, the fulfilment of this objective is not incompatible with the ability to meet environmental and economic objectives. The spectrum of sustainable management of modern companies is very extensive, with the research findings indicating that the surveyed population of companies rates this dimension of management at the organisational level as complete in 71.42%. The above provides grounds for the positive verification of the research hypothesis stating that pharmaceutical companies orient their adopted business models in a sustainable direction.

The results of this study confirm that the driving force behind sustainable development realised at the level of Polish pharmaceutical companies is the strengthening of innovative solutions. The above refers to key aspects of sustainable development. In the social sphere, it is most strongly expressed in the orientation towards searching for new or enhancing the effectiveness of existing therapeutic substances based on product innovation, which was confirmed in 57.14% of the studied cases. In the environmental sphere, it is most strongly observed in the orientation towards green resources, including, inter alia, green energy (71.42% of cases) and green technologies (57.14% of cases), with the greatest need confirmed in improving resource management (28.57% of cases), with particular emphasis on the role of staff competence in this process (71.42% indications). The improvement of the indicated dimensions determines the strengthening of the economic result of the activity, which is part of the third pillar of sustainable development. The above confirms the development of pharmaceutical companies in a sustainable direction, the driving force of which is strengthening innovation at the organisational level. The presented inference gives grounds for positive verification of the second hypothesis, stating that innovation is a determinant of the sustainable development of pharmaceutical companies.

The estimation of innovation for the overall assessment of its impact on the development of firms can be successfully based on the use of tools of a qualitative–quantitative nature.

Analysing the findings of this paper, it should be considered that the research objective using the proposed qualitative–quantitative approach in estimating innovation and its impact on the overall development of firms has been achieved. The above supports the idea that an innovation measurement methodology of this nature is useful for assessing the degree of companies’ commitment to sustainable development, which is consistent with the adopted third research hypothesis. The above highlights the value of a dual approach to estimating business innovation, against the background of available measurement techniques in this area. The above supports the need to practice this type of approach for the overall assessment of the impact of innovation on firm development.

The findings of this paper primarily serve companies in the process of assessing their sustainability performance. Furthermore, based on the benchmarking results, it is possible for companies to draw conclusions and review the strategies they have adopted. The results can also be used in the area of creating an industry ranking or general assessment of the sustainability orientation of enterprises, considered through the role of innovation in this process. However, it should be emphasised that the results obtained refer to a selected, narrow group of pharmaceutical companies with good business performance. Hence, this paper’s findings can be regarded as a kind of benchmark, which can serve less experienced companies in creating a development path towards sustainability.

The layout of the limitations of this paper creates research potential, in terms of the need to study a broad population of randomly admitted pharmaceutical companies; the results of which could be generalised.