Entrepreneurship and National System of Innovation : What is missing in Turkey?

Although very dynamic and flexible, Turkish SMEs are less innovative than their European counterparts. The analysis undertaken in this paper allows to assess whether this low level of innovative activities is related to a lack of entrepreneurial behavior and/or to the weaknesses of Turkish innovation system. Exploring a unique firm-level survey realized among 50.000 small and medium sized enterprises, we seek to evaluate the impact of firms’ behavior and choices in presence of entrepreneurial, technological, institutional and market opportunities, in an emerging country context. Our results highlight the importance of policy measures in building innovative capabilities.