The Challenges While Measuring Enterprise Innovative Activities - the Case from a Developing Country

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME sector) carry a significant component of an overall economy performance in both developed and developing countries. This paper presents the results of innovation activities analysis on a given sample of SMEs from the Republic of Serbia. By implementing a complex questionnaire for assessing innovation activities authors investigate what innovation activities are conducted in sampled enterprises. Results are processed with Cochran Q, McNemar and statistical significance tests and indicate what particular innovation activities measures enterprises focus on, as well as what measures are considered as relevant by enterprises but are not used. At the same time, the factor analysis was performed to test the quality and structure of the questionnaire itself, namely whether measures of achieved innovation performances of enterprises are properly divided into categories. Additionally, specific innovation activities were analyzed and their implementation modalities by the sampled enterprises. The results contribute in the domain of better understanding of innovation activities measurement within SMEs coming from developing countries. Based on the research results, we got the insight into specific innovation activities SMEs perform, as well as key innovation performance indicators SMEs use.

Keywords

• Cochran Q test
• developing countries
• innovation activities
• McNemar test
• small and medium enterprises