Understanding innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises: a process manifest (original) (raw)
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Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the manufacturing sector make a significant contribution to economic growth, yet most of the research into innovation management in the manufacturing sector has focused on large organizations. This article, however, identifies innovation drivers and their performance implications in manufacturing SMEs. Its study gathered survey data from a sample of 600 Australian SMEs and found that SMEs are similar to large firms with respect to the way that innovation strategy and formal structure are the key drivers of their performance, but do not appear to utilize innovation culture in a strategic and structured manner. This study therefore concludes that SMEs' performance is likely to improve as they increase the degree to which they mirror large manufacturing firms with respect to formal strategy and structure, and to which they recognize that innovation culture and strategy are closely aligned throughout the innovation process.
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Technovation, 2008
The present research stems from the results of a survey on the innovativeness of a sample of Italian Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). These results, largely based on self-reported data by entrepreneurs or managers, showed that the considered SMEs were important developers of radical innovations in contrast with data published by local institutions. This misalignment between the entrepreneurs' opinions and the official data, that are typically defined and selected by academics and policy makers, motivated a new research aimed at analyzing the intimate reasons for it. The research is rooted in the social construction of innovation perspective and is based on interviews with the three main innovation stakeholders, identified as: entrepreneurs, academics, and policy makers. The results show the existence of deeply different perspectives concerning innovation, starting from its definition, to the effective policies to promote it, to the role of intermediary institutions and so on. Sometimes, these views show diverging goals among the stakeholders and, consequently, contrasting opinions on effective supporting policies. These results can partly explain the misalignment between the survey's output and ''institutional'' data and, maybe, also the failure of many supporting initiatives that are largely documented by our survey and also by literature. The aim of the paper is to investigate the different perspectives on innovation held by the considered stakeholders, highlighting the points of major contrast together with similarities in order to provide new insights into the problem. r
SMEs Innovation Management Framework
The topic of innovation management has received much attention from research, industry and state support in the past number of years. However, much of the research has focused on the large enterprises with much available financial wealth and planning infrastructure required, in order to be effective at managing innovation. This research has not greatly benefited SMEs due to the key differences in industry practice between large, medium and small enterprises. A review of the literature has been conducted and synthesized in order to understand the factors that affect the innovation management process within Turkish SMEs. Our approach to this research has been designed around six phases: literature review (background), research hypnosis (induction), research instrument design (survey development), implementation (data collection), data analysis, conclusion and recommendations. A number of interviews were conducted with 25 SMEs using 3 different innovation auditing models to capture and validate best practice techniques. The goal of the analysis was (a) to understand the Turkish SMEs current capabilities and innovation management practices in each organization and (b) to identify a set of recommendation that may facilitate and enhance innovation management in all participated SMEs. The results of interviews and findings of the audits have been reported. From the analysis of the results section showing that majority of the SMEs having apparent lacking of innovation strategic plan, culture, formal process and assessment approach to measure impact of innovation project results to the overall success of the organization.
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The objective of ‘Innovation in SMEs’ is to optimise the Research, Development & Innovation environment for SMEs, including through the establishment and facilitation of a range of support services, with the aim of strengthening the innovation capacity of SMEs and creating value on the market and/or into society, thus underpinning the Europe2020 strategy for smart, inclusive and sustainable growth.
Innovative efforts of SMEs: exploring the barriers to successful implementation
International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development, 2012
Innovation is the key aspect through which small and medium sized enterprises can survive during the current global crisis. The paper examines the companies' innovation efforts in a region where the innovation outcome is at a very low level, in order to determine the barriers to innovation, recognise the prospects, the strengths and the weaknesses, and evaluate the influence of the selected parameters. The research is based on data collected through telephone interviews with owners and managers of companies at the North Aegean islanding region of Greece. The study proves that successful innovation is the result of multiple, interconnected factors, which should be developed in parallel in order to ensure positive, sustainable outcome. Thus, areas of innovative improvement can be used as guidelines for the public and private sector of the less developed regions in order to take actions which will strengthen production, and export capacity of the companies.