AN ANALYSIS OF FEMALE ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION IN SERBIA IN THE CONTEXT OF EU COMPETITIVENESS

In economies that are led by innovation, innovativeness and competitiveness are interdependent. If an enterprise and/or economy is competitive in the market it will likely have a high level of innovation management, harmonized with EU standards. A variety of different methodologies is used to assess the innovation capacities of small and medium sized companies, but IMP³rove methodology is widespread in EU countries. It is a benchmarking process which gives, as the final output, a comprehensive report on how to improve and leverage innovation management for profitable growth, which includes a) identification of the gaps hampering growth and b) the direction in which and how the company should be developed and grown. For the purpose of this paper, IMP³rove methodology was adjusted and simplified to assess the innovation capacity of a single company without benchmarking. The focus of the paper is 22 Serbian companies owned and managed by women, which were included in innovation scanning according to the IMP³rove methodology in 2010. All companies included in the sample employ more than 10 employees. The resulting analysis aims to provide insight into the holistic innovation capacity of the selected companies through four dimensions of the so-called ‘House of Innovation’1. They are: innovation strategy, innovation organization and culture, innovation process (life cycle management), and enabling factors supporting the development of the company’s innovation management. This analysis provides an overview of the innovation management platform necessary to enhance small and medium enterprises’ (SME) business performance and competitiveness in the EU market. The analysis also presents the results of research on the gender aspects of the institutions and programmes that support innovativeness and competitiveness in SMEs.