engleski

Innovation capacity in traditional food SMEs in Croatia

The objective of this study was to determine innovation capacity of Croatian traditional food small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the period from 2010 – 2012. We examined in which innovation activities traditional food SMEs mostly invested in this period and how they perceived the contribution of introduced innovations to their business growth. The survey included 65 producers of traditional agri-food products (TAFP). Results showed that high proportion of SMEs have invested in some innovation activity in 2012. Most of them made investments due to some necessity, mainly in product and/or process development. Producers of TAFP have mostly invested in product innovations while smaller proportion of SMEs invested in market and organizational innovations. As perceived, the highest contribution to business growth had investments in products innovations (improvement of quality, packaging and convenience of TAFP). Profitable SMEs and those with higher annual income believed that investments in products innovations (packaging) and market innovations (new markets and improvement of marketing) significantly contributed to their business growth compared to unprofitable and SMEs with lower income (p<0.05). The results indicate that Croatian traditional food SMEs are aware of the importance of innovation, however, insufficient available budget are one of the major constraint on their greater use.

innovation capacity; small and medium enterprises; traditional agri-food products

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