SME's and Innovation - Perceived Barriers and Behavioural Patterns

Face to markets' internationalisation, firms need to adapt themselves to changes, and even to adopt an aggressive innovation policy. In fact, innovation is being considered a key factor in firms' competitiveness. However, the research carried out is essentially oriented to larger companies and few researches have focused on small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). The main purpose of this paper is to present some findings from a research carried out in order to highlight the main difficulties felt by Portuguese SME, regarding the innovation phenomenon, as well as to establish SME behaviour patterns