Explaining Factors of Innovation for Turkish SMEs: A Firm-level Empirical Analysis
Mehmet Oğuzcan Kervancı, Ayşegül Kayaoğlu YılmazSmall and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) account for a considerable proportion of economic development and job creation, making their survival and growth crucial, especially for developing countries. As innovation is one of the vital sources of prosperity for those establishments, it would be extremely helpful to identify the factors that promote or hinder it. Analyzing the World Bank’s Regional Enterprise Survey, this paper investigates the determinants of innovation activities of Turkish SMEs and aims to contribute to the knowledge on those businesses in the context of a developing country. Our analyses show that the main factors that affect SMEs being innovative in Turkey are their size, ownership type, experience in the international market, obtaining government grants, existence of women in the ownership and the governance environment, and – in particular - corruption and labor regulations.
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