Abstract:
The study, based on a comprehensive sample focusing – for the first time – on the SME sector specifically, tries to depict entrepreneurial and business potentials as to prevailing innovation-oriented attitudes and related activities, differentiated by relevant size, classes (EU definition) and major sectors.
The term “innovation“ thereby follows the commonly accepted and widely used Oslo/OECD definition which – with a kind of Schumpeterian touch – has proved itself more readily being applicable also to smaller and entrepreneurially driven entities.
Results on the whole clearly demonstrate that SMEs, in reflecting the specifically small scale Austrian business structure, with over 99% of non- primary business establishments being of small and medium size, represent the mainstay of innovative forces and potentials in the country; thus, visibly outperforming the minority of larger enterprises (which quite often maintain their R&D units at respective headquarters abroad anyway).
