Improvement of Innovation Capacity of SMEs in Serbia by Connecting With Key Stakeholders

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of connecting with key stakeholders in order to improve innovative capacity of SMEs. This is essential for SMEs in Serbia where these enterprises are facing numerous problems in operation and performance of innovative activities. Starting from the existing theoretical views about the importance of creating innovative SMEs business network which results in the creation and delivery of unique value to the market, the authors tend to explore the innovative capacity of SMEs in Serbia and identify opportunities for cooperation with key stakeholders. Wider interest in empirical research coincides with the need for more intensive involvement of Serbian SMEs in foreign markets. The survey was conducted on a sample of 304 SMEs in Serbia. In the survey, data were collected using personal interview and in-depth interview. The questionnaire is structured in such a way that allows to identify the importance which managers attribute to cooperation with key stakeholders, in order to increase their innovative capacity. The findings indicate that the SMEs managers in Serbia still do not perceive the importance of connecting with stakeholders to perform the innovative activities. Based on these findings, SMEs managers would do well if they pay attention to open innovation as new innovative practices which can contribute to create valuable knowledge necessary to perform innovative activities. For academics, this paper indicates the need for a further research in order to identify the obstacles SMEs in Serbia are facing within the process of networking with both domestic and foreign stakeholders, which is the reason they are underused in increasing innovative capacity.

Worldwide Research on Open Innovation in SMEs

“…In this decade, the research focused on the commitment of SMEs to assuming open innovation in their processes [3,27,118,119], the establishment and use of business models [120][121][122][123], business practices [31,[124][125][126] and the development of OI through local and global networks [127][128][129][130]. OI has been studied from the perspectives of absorptive capacity [23,35,[131][132][133], technological capabilities [134][135][136], dynamic capabilities [137,138], sustainability [139,140] and stakeholder theory [141][142][143][144]. Other scholars considered their benefits, examining firm performance [145][146][147][148][149], innovation performance [150][151][152][153] and customer performance [133].…”

“…Eleven of them have only one paper, with Switzerland standing out, whose only publication is among the most cited with 1180 citations [29]. Europe has the most significant number of countries (31 countries, 352 papers), followed by Asia (20,141), America (8,59), Oceania (2,13) and Africa (4, 11).…”

The Impact of Interplay between Formal and Informal Institutions on Innovation Performance: Evidence from CEECs

“…Researchers have until now focused on: i) the regional innovation process (Rodriguez, 2014); ii) the innovation capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (Dukic et al, 2015) or industrial structure in innovation capacity (Zdrazil et al, 2016); iii) the innovation ecosystem (Jucevicius et al, 2016); iv) open innovation policies (Sekliuckiene et al, 2016); v) the innovation environment and innovation activities of strong, moderate or modest innovators among CEECs (Prokop & Stejskal, 2017); vi) innovative SMEs (Belas et al, 2017); vii) pro-innovation factors (Kraftova & Kraft, 2018); viii) the impact of human resources, research networks, the institutional environment, public or private expenditures on research and development (European Commission, 2019a); or ix) measuring the innovation performance of developed and developing regions (Ghazinoory et al, 2014). Others focused on confirming the impact of formal or informal institutions on innovation performance in various countries.…”

Cooperation as a Mediator between Entrepreneurial Competences and Internationalization of New Venture

“…For this reason, entrepreneurial activities are focused on the acceptance of the new concept of open innovation to find the missing resources outside the company. According to Djukic et al (2015), sees the concept of open innovation as an exchange of knowledge with the intention of accelerating the development of internal innovation while expanding markets for the successful external appearance of new products or services. These approaches assume that faster and cheaper innovation processes can be achieved by using external knowledge and stimuli, financial resources, experience, and spillover effects (Prokop & Stejskal, 2017).…”