Abstract

Research background. SMEs make up in the national economy, but also throughout the EU an important segment of the economic system, and their importance continues to grow. SMEs in Slovakia according to the latest data of the European Commission represent 99.9 per cent of all enterprises constitute 70.7 per cent of jobs and 61.2 per cent of value added in the economy. However, they are often confronted with market imperfections. SMEs frequently have difficulties in obtaining capital or credit, particularly in the early start-up phase. Their restricted resources may also reduce access to new technologies or innovation. Publications on SMEs also analyze their impact on the development of various areas in the economy, and ways and forms of financing the development of SMEs and other. The long-term financial performance of companies is closely linked to their investment into innovation. Long-term innovations vary the ability of the company to succeed in the post-crisis period. According Bockova and Zizlavsky the median value of companies with R&D expenditures proved an ability to regain the original value of profitability ratios ROE and ROA earlier than companies without R&D expenditures [2]. The European Commission, financial markets and financial institutions are traditionally reluctant to invest in R&D projects, because they bear a higher uncertainty/risk, compared to more traditional business projects. Firms need to find alternative channels to traditional bank loans, in order to finance their creation or expansion investments. Thus, when private sources are insufficient, banks refuse loans and governments’ grants are not suitable for a specific project, the remaining options are: convincing a Business Angels to invest; finding an established industrial company interested in the project (corporate Venture Capital), or going to a Venture Capital. Koišová et al. [14].  The aim of this article. The goal of this scientific paper is to identify the financial sources used by SMEs to finance innovation depending on the size of an enterprise, to assess which of these sources is essential for SMEs and to determine the type of implemented innovation depending on the size category of an enterprise. Methodology/methods.  In order to fulfill the declared goal we realized an empirical research, being executed in 2016. The research was conducted through a questionnaire with a total of 529 respondents. The research tool used for the study was the own questionnaire consisting of 38 questions and the demographics. From the total number of enterprises there were 55% of micro-sized enterprises, 30% of small-sized enterprises, 15% of medium-sized enterprises. The chi-square test as a fundamental statistical method was used to meet the research goal and relating test hypotheses. The results of the analysis. Research has shown that SMEs are using to finance innovation mostly their internal sources (profit) and only a small extent of sources from European Union or subsidies from government. It is implied that innovation policy tools from EU and government are used just a very little. Problems in Slovakia in accessing external funds due to the complexity of the process of approval of applications and documents and strict criteria for the assessment of financial capacity Conclusions and further research perspectives. State innovation policy tools based on European Union innovation policy appear to be an important factor in terms of increasing the innovation performance of companies. These innovation tools are supposed help generate funding sources for innovation activities and are primarily focused on the sector of small and medium-sized enterprises, considering their importance to economy. The novelty of this paper the identification of the current state within the financing of innovation activities of SMEs and finding the barriers to their development. These findings open up further scope for exploring this issue, such as intensifying the use of national innovation policy instruments and coordinating them with other policies such as industrial, trade, competition and cluster policies under the Strategy Europe 2020. Further research will be devoted to exploring the role of SMEs within the other EU common and coordinating policies such as Industry policy, Cluster policy and Strategy 2020.

Keywords: innovation, financial sources, innovation policy, types of innovation

JEL Classification: F68, L51, O32.

Cite as: Ivanová, E. & Kordoš, M. (2017). Innovation policy of SMEs in Slovakia in the context of European Union innovation policy. Marketing and Management of Innovations, 3, 213-225. https://doi.org/10.21272/mmi.2017.3-20

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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