AI, robots and innovation in European SMEs

IF 6.5 1区经济学 Q1 BUSINESS

Small Business Economics Pub Date : 2025-02-25 DOI:10.1007/s11187-025-01017-2

Agustí Segarra-Blasco, Josep Tomàs-Porres, Mercedes Teruel

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Abstract

There is increasing interest in the impact of advanced digital technologies on SMEs, but the determinants of their adoption and their association with multiple innovation outcomes remain unexplored. Based on the Flash Eurobarometer 486, this paper analyses how the adoption of artificial intelligence and robots is related to European SMEs carrying out product, process, organizational and marketing innovations. Our results establish scale-ups and start-ups as the most likely adopters of these technologies and the most innovative firms. Furthermore, internal characteristics, such as internationalization and firm size, and external factors, such as the availability of digital skills and infrastructure, are significant drivers of digitalization at the firm level. In a two-stage approach, we find that the adoption of artificial intelligence and robots is associated with all innovation types, although these technologies serve more specialised objectives in manufacturing rather than in service sectors. Our results confirm a significant variability in the adoption of artificial intelligence and robots, as well as heterogeneous associations with innovation outcomes.

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来源期刊

Small Business Economics Multiple-

CiteScore

14.10

自引率

9.40%

发文量

124

期刊介绍： Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal (SBEJ) publishes original, rigorous theoretical and empirical research addressing all aspects of entrepreneurship and small business economics, with a special emphasis on the economic and societal relevance of research findings for scholars, practitioners and policy makers. SBEJ covers a broad scope of topics, ranging from the core themes of the entrepreneurial process and new venture creation to other topics like self-employment, family firms, small and medium-sized enterprises, innovative start-ups, and entrepreneurial finance. SBEJ welcomes scientific studies at different levels of analysis, including individuals (e.g. entrepreneurs'' characteristics and occupational choice), firms (e.g., firms’ life courses and performance, innovation, and global issues like digitization), macro level (e.g., institutions and public policies within local, regional, national and international contexts), as well as cross-level dynamics. As a leading entrepreneurship journal, SBEJ welcomes cross-disciplinary research. Officially cited as: Small Bus Econ