Government and innovation performance: evidence from the ICT enterprising community

Purpose - The purpose of this paper will be on finding and analyzing the impact of government on the information and communication technology (ICT) companies’ innovation performance. The study aims to conduct in-depth research about the government as an integrated actor of the innovation ecosystem (IE), not a sole member. This would be the core finding toward doing further research about the impact of the innovation ecosystem in the ICT sector in Kosovo. Design/methodology/approach - Quantitative research has been considered the most suitable data collection method. Furthermore, in this study, it is used convenience sampling as a technique of the sampling process. The sample size of this study is 106 participants. The participants are owners or representatives of ICT companies in Kosovo. Since the study is conducted using the deductive approach, the questionnaire is considered to be the most suitable instrument for gathering data. Findings - This paper provides empirical insights that the company’s size and the dedicated department for research and development have no impact on how the company takes advantage of public funding from the government. Furthermore, the authors of the paper found out that government has a positive impact on companies’ introduction of new products and services, while the impact of the government on a company’s financial performance was insignificant. Research limitations/implications - The future research direction should be firstly on studying other IE actors and their impact on companies’ innovation performance and secondly on measuring the IE actors as a set of actors to have a broader picture on how IE impacts the companies’ innovation performance. Practical implications - The scientific contribution of this study will be on mapping, analyzing and proposing government policies in accordance with the findings of this study that would lead to a more comprehensive and sustainable IE in Kosovo. Originality/value - This study tries to fulfill an identified need to study the impact of interconnected actors of an innovation ecosystem and to show how they affect each other. In this study, it is taken for research one fragment of a set of actors.