Underrated Innovativeness of Micro-Enterprises Compared to Small to Medium Enterprises in the Slovenian Forest-Wood Sector

Abstract

Although micro-enterprises represent most of the enterprises across different sectors, they are excluded from official statistics on innovation activities. What we know about micro-enterprises is based on smaller quantitative and qualitative studies that are country- and sector-specific. To understand the innovation activities of Slovenian enterprises in the forest-wood sector, we conducted our own quantitative study in 2019 based on the Eurostat’s Community Innovation Survey (CIS) questionnaire. Based on responses from 294 enterprises, we compare how micro-enterprises and small to medium enterprises (SMEs) differ in innovation strategies, product, and process innovations, co-operation with other organisations, innovation activities, and innovations with environmental benefits. The results indicate that, in some respects, enterprises with two to nine employees are at least as innovative as small to medium enterprises, or even more so. We argue that innovation surveys should lower the employee count threshold to attain better representative insight into the innovation landscape.

Crisis, innovation and change management: a blind spot for micro-firms?

“…Based on this approach, the findings seem to validate why these identified atypical forms of organization and management are indicators of different evolutionaryphysiologicaltrajectories in firms (Helfat, 2018;Hodgson, 1993;Vlados, 2004;Witt, 2006). Also, they presumably verify that systematic-massive management models (see Taylorism) have limited scope in less dynamic socioeconomic organizations (Nelson, 1991;Simon, 1982).…”

“…investigate this research gap, contending that MFs of less developed ecosystems do not innovate efficiently due to their physiology. This biologically oriented approach perceives organizational development as evolutionary, meaning that all dimensions of the internal environment coevolve with each other and the broader macrodimensions (Hodgson, 1993;Simon, 1982;Vlados, 2004;Witt, 2006). discern that most SFs face significant difficulties in producing, reproducing and synthesizing their strategic, technological and managerial trajectory (Stra.…”

“…Some approaches emphasize components primarily traced in larger firms, such as R&D and green innovation (Baumann and Kritikos, 2016; Mellett et al , 2018; Yíldírím and Arun, 2019). Also, other related research shows that MFs can be equally innovative as their small and medium counterparts (Slavec, 2022) and that innovation is not a systematic process in MFs due to their lack of specific resources (Faherty and Stephens, 2016).…”