Purpose – In contemporary conditions, strategic advantage built by enterprises on the basis of innovativeness takes the form of open innovations, which ensue not only from R&D sector’s activity but constitute a result of cooperation of external entities (Chesbrough, 2003; Gassman, Enkel, 2004; Sopińska, 2013). Greater openness to external cooperation, together with uncertainty that accompanies every innovation directs the attention to the social context of this process (Baregheh et al., 2009) and the role of managers in creating conditions conducive to innovativeness (Terziovski, Morgan, 2006; Drucker, 2008; Hueske, Guenther, 2015). The article corresponds with two research streams concerning innovativeness. The former regards the evaluation of enterprises’ openness to innovativeness; the latter refers to the role of managers in creating conditions conducive to innovativeness. The paper aims to evaluate the openness of the surveyed enterprises to innovations and their innovativeness, and also to identify the factors conducive to the openness of enterprises in the area of management. The paper serves to fill the gap that ensues from lack of research on the determinants of innovativeness of Polish enterprises with reference to openness to innovations. Design/methodology/approach – The presented research constitutes a part of a larger research project, the aim of which was to identify the decision-making determinants in the process of implementing RFID system in Polish enterprises (Radio Frequency IDentification with autonomous semi-passive RFID tag (API)). The study uses the results of the analysis of the research conducted in 202 Polish companies. The data used in the analysis were gathered by means of a questionnaire completed in a direct or an electronic form by companies’ owners, medium and high-level managers making decisions concerning investments or responsible for them. There were applied the statistical methods of analysing the data, the sampling of which ensued from the specific objectives of the research (Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA test, factor analysis). Originality/value – The research indicates that the innovativeness of an enterprise is ambiguous as far as its openness to innovations is concerned, which constituted the basis for distinguishing four types of companies. The article presents the characteristics of innovative enterprises which are open to innovations (I/O) and non-innovative ones which are closed to innovations (N/C). It was proved that the three features of the managers of the surveyed companies, i.e., management style, work management skills and orientation towards organisation’s development influence their assignment to a certain type of enterprise. Practical implications – One can indicate two areas of practical implications of the conducted research. The former refers to the characteristics of non-innovative and closed to innovations companies, which indicates organisations that most frequently lack innovativeness. The latter comprises personal practices, i.e., sampling, training, evaluation, motivation, which can also include the tools for proper formation of managers’ skills, which enable them to build social conditions facilitating the innovativeness of enterprises.