Determinants of innovativeness of Slovak SMEs

The article considers changes in organizational structure (in the context of a shift in favor of small business), the main factors and long-term prospects of these changes. Enhancing the role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in many countries of the world is described. The concept of SMEs, as well as the range of indicators measuring organizational structure, is defined. Modern trends that indicate the increasing role of small and medium-sized enterprises are shown. On the basis of dynamics of economic indicators in Europe and the United States, the increasing role of small and medium enterprises is investigated. It is shown that the increase in the share of the service sector is the result of market saturation. The influence of the service sector on the shifts in the organizational structure in the period of global economic changes, as well as the influence on the increasing share of more flexible and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in total employment and income, is argued. Increased competition in the process of saturation of the market is shown as one of the factors of the development of personal needs that promote individual entrepreneurs, inventors and innovators, for whom a complex and rigid structure of large organizations is the factor which limits the growth and interferes with their becoming the engines of scientific and technological progress. It is proved that in conditions when large corporations find themselves unable to identify a new micro niche quickly, small and medium enterprises are becoming the most convenient form for the realization and promotion of innovation. The transition from the dominance of large corporations to the dominance of SMEs in the process of substitution of technological modes is investigated. The increasing role of small and medium firms in the context of long-term trends of economic development is considered.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an analytical analysis of cointegration between Europe and the other significant trading partners, namely US, China, Japan and Australia, for the period from January 1, 2010 to December 30, 2016. This captures the impact of the sovereign European debt crisis and the Greek crisis. A range of parametric techniques were adopted including Johansen cointegration analysis, Vector Error Correction Model and Granger causality. The results of the crisis Granger causality test during the European sovereign crisis implies the highest influence to be that of the US and Japanese stock market over the other four markets. Overall, found that the Asia-Pacific region plus the US stay closely related to each other, while European countries influence all the studied markets except each other. For the post-crisis sub-period, the Granger causality is slightly different. It is observable that the UK and Germany are influencing all the markets. This is probably due to the recent Brexit referendum outcome and potential consequences not only for the EU, but also for the rest of the world too. Overall, the Granger outcome shows the dependence between Europe and other global markets, but there is no European interdependence during the sovereign debt crisis period. It may be concluded that there is a separation of Asian markets from the European markets and even though cointegration exists, the relationship is rather weak.

Small food and beverage business is considered highly contributing to the economy as it has a close linkage with local micro and small businesses, both upstream and downstream. However, this business group faces challenges; many of them are unable to survive, grow, and compete with large ones. This study is intended to analyze internal factors affecting the performance of small food and beverage businesses in Indonesia. With the use of 100 samples of small businesses, the study applied OLS multiple regression to examine the four internal factors, which are entrepreneurial characteristics, marketing strategies, business capital, and innovation activity. The study results show that marketing strategies, business capital, and innovation activities have a positive and significant effect on the performance of small food and beverage businesses. These findings indicate that small businesses depend mostly on those three factors with different levels of intensity for different business locations. Businesses located in universities and hospital areas are likely to have low intensity compared to those located in office areas or crowded places. Differently, entrepreneurial characteristics do not affect performance. Likely, small entrepreneurs did not have a strong business interest, still expecting to work in government organizations and companies. They established a business due to family encouragement and economic needs.

Acknowledgment
The study on the small businesses in food and beverage sector is part of a research grant project from Hasanuddin University conducted by LP2M (Institute for Research and Community Services Institute of Hasanuddin University). In carrying out this study, the involvement of a number of agencies cannot be ignored: Cooperatives and Small and Medium Size Regional Office of South Sulawesi Province and Cooperatives and Small and Medium Size Regional Office of Makassar City.