The Role Of Innovation And Technology To Smes Development (Albania Case)

It is now well known the important role that activities related to innovation and technology play to enterprises growth and development, in particular to SMEs development in transition economies. Since Albanian economy is still developing, it is very important to identify all positive factors that affect enterprises development. The main goal of this paper is to present different ways in which Albanian enterprises undertake innovations and changes in their technology and organizational structures, and provide statistical results related to Innovation Technology Index and Innovation Organizational Index. To achieve this goal, we use data from 204 Albanian enterprises selected by EBRD survey (BEEPS05). The statistical results indicate that 73.2 percent of enterprises had undertaken innovations in technology and only 18.6 percent of them had changed their organizational structures. The overall results of this paper help us better understand the important role that innovation and technology play to enterprises development and more generally to Albanian economy. Finally, this paper provides interesting conclusions and recommendations for Albanian enterprises, new entrepreneurs and other private or public institutions. These will also be very helpful for many researchers of different economics fields.