Assessment of the Innovation Capacity of Business Entities in the Republic of Serbia

The paper aims to assess the innovation capacity of business entities in the Republic of Serbia by conducting desk and field research. Desk research involves an analysis of relevant literature, statistics, and data on different actors of the innovation system of RS. Field research is conducted using a survey on a sample of 10 large companies and 30 SMEs. Additionally, a good practice example technique is used to gain insight into the business model and practice of a company that successfully innovates. To assess the innovation capacity, the differences between large and SMEs are analysed in terms of a strategic approach to innovation development, degree of familiarity with the concept of innovation, type of innovative activities and perception of innovation environment and the importance and quality of activity of individual participants in the innovation system. The research confirms that large companies have a more pronounced strategic approach to the innovation development and are more familiar with the innovation concept. When it comes to performance, large companies consider the academia and science to be the most successful, and SMEs consider the ICT companies as most successful. Concerning the importance, large companies attach equal and greatest importance to science and academia, large companies, start-up companies and ICT companies. On the contrary, SMEs believe that the Ministry in charge of innovation is the most important actor in the innovation system. The research results indicate that SMEs innovate differently from large companies. Considering that the national innovation system is still insufficiently developed, and that there are numerous obstacles, the Serbian business entities have solid innovation capacity