External factors influencing SME’s innovation outcomes in visegrad countries: A document analysis

Abstract

Stimulating innovation has been key in addressing policy challenges facing small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in the Visegrad countries. Innovational activities among firms within the Visegrad countries have given firms a competitive advantage. Understanding some factors that influence process and product innovation and their impact are very necessary for deciding on the innovation strategy that leads to successful innovation. The study assesses some external factors that SMEs within Visegrad countries find most detrimental to their innovative activity using document analysis. Twenty-five articles were reviewed from the web of science, Scopus, and Google scholar databases, thus, from 2006 to 2020. The articles revealed the innovation types of SMEs in the Visegrad countries and external factors influencing innovation the most. The document analysis results show that external factors such as spatial and locational, markets for firms’ product, public policy, society, and environmental factors are very important for SMEs product and process innovation outcomes. Again, the study not only gives insights into the SME's innovation literature but rather a wake-up call to SME's practitioners and stakeholders on the need to ensure sustainable SME's given the swift growth of innovation across the globe. Limitation and future research directions are presented at the end of the paper. © 2021, Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited. All rights reserved.