COOPERATION’S CHARACTERISTICS FOR POTENTIAL INNOVATIVE SMES IN CRISIS: THE GREEK PARADIGM

This study focuses on the role of business cooperation and firms’ exporting activity as the determinants of Greek manufacturing SMEs’ innovative extend use, contributing to the existing empirical literature. The empirical analysis based on unique both quantitative and qualitative data, derived from a survey covering more than 158 small and medium-sized Greek manufacturing firms, and examines factors affecting innovation activity, emphasizing on clustering activities. We find that inter-firm cooperation enhances innovation activity, which in turn empowers firms’ growth by improving domestic and overseas sales performance. This study opens the floor for a greater perspective in managerial and financial firms’ characteristics; Firms should take initiatives to promote collaborative networks for innovation and create trade associations that represent SMEs, in order to facilitate social interaction. Also, government should offer incentives to SMEs with high innovation potential (e.g. tax allowances) and invigorate linkages between universities, research centers and the private sector by creating effective institutional arrangements. Finally, we seek to provide policy implications to business owners, policy makers and academics, to optimize performance, in the shadow of economic turbulence that the country experiences.