ABSTRACT

Using a 2019 data set, 236 regions across 26 European countries are investigated, focusing on four, interlinked, conditions of potential relevance to SME innovation, specifically measures focused on levels of human capital, internal firm innovation, innovation collaborations and broader knowledge collaborations between public and private sectors. The methodology applied uses a configurational approach to elucidate relationships, specifically fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to evaluate how these conditions affect sales of new-to-market and new-to-firm innovations as a percentage of total turnover for SMEs in each region against the EU 2019 average (NMFS). In addition to existence of the classic ‘core’ region ‘innovation ecosystem’ recipe, having presence of three of the four conditions (in-house innovation being non-relevant), analysis reveals innovation policy may require specific tailoring in certain types of regions. This suggests greater collaboration is required to overcome more extensive absence of other parts of the Regional Innovation System, in-house innovation required to overcome lack of education alone. The main contributions of the research are to generate a more comprehensive evaluation of the complexity of innovation at the regional level, graphical ‘map’ based elucidation of findings also contributing to establishing a baseline for future analysis for European regions’ SME-innovation performance.

摘要

使用2019年数据集，调查了26个欧洲国家的236个地区，重点关注与中小企业创新潜在相关的四个相互关联的条件，特别是针对人力资本水平，内部公司创新，创新合作以及公众之间更广泛的知识合作的措施和私营部门。所采用的方法采用一种配置方法来阐明关系，特别是模糊集定性比较分析（fsQCA），以评估这些条件如何影响新市场和新公司创新的销售额（占中小型企业总营业额的百分比）每个地区均以欧盟2019年平均值（NMFS）为准。除了存在经典的“核心”区域“创新生态系统”配方之外，还存在四个条件中的三个（内部创新不相关），分析表明，创新政策可能需要在某些类型的地区进行特定的调整。这表明需要更多的合作来克服区域创新系统其他部分的广泛缺失，而内部创新则是克服教育不足所需要的。该研究的主要贡献是在区域层面上对创新的复杂性进行更全面的评估，基于图形化“地图”的发现说明也有助于为欧洲地区的中小企业创新绩效的未来分析建立基准。内部创新需要克服仅受教育不足的问题。该研究的主要贡献是在区域层面上对创新的复杂性进行更全面的评估，基于图形化“地图”的发现说明也有助于为欧洲地区的中小企业创新绩效的未来分析建立基准。内部创新需要克服仅受教育不足的问题。该研究的主要贡献是在区域层面上对创新的复杂性进行更全面的评估，基于图形化“地图”的发现说明也有助于为欧洲地区的中小企业创新绩效的未来分析建立基准。