Most policymakers and academics agree that entrepreneurship is critical to the development and well-being of society. Entrepreneurs create jobs. They drive and shape innovation, speeding up structural changes in the economy. By introducing new competition, they contribute indirectly to...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in China¡¯s impressive economic growth and make substantial contribution to employment and outputs in last decades. Nevertheless, a lot of bottlenecks and obstacles appear for further growth of SMEs, especially with respect to...

In Romania approximately two thirds of the national production is generated by the private sector of the economy, which is still relatively a low value compared to the weight registered in the developed countries. The economic crisis has also affected the private enterprise sector. Some major...

Contemporary manufacturing supply chains face multiple challenges due to long, complex networks that operate internationally. Here, the focal company is an SME that has spread its network globally to reach mining customers with quality products within the shortest lead time. This study uses the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the European Regions for Innovative Productivity project that established Innovative Productivity Centres (IPCs) to assist SMEs in the North Sea Region of Europe to develop a process improvement capability. A conceptual framework explains how a...