Regional disparities in financing innovations in small and medium-sized enterprises

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises have a strong potential for economic development in Slovak Republic. They play the key role in transfer of technologies and knowledge, thus contribute to transfer of innovations to the market. Therefore, financing innovations is a major prerequisite for successful implementation of innovative business processes. One of the research tasks was to ask business entities to provide their opinions on bank loans to finance innovations, and on transparency of information on bank loan conditions. Next, differences in financing innovations by small and medium-sized enterprises in the regions of Slovak Republic were analysed. Opinions from 541 respondents from all 8 Slovak regions were obtained through a questionnaire survey. A χ2 independence test and a test to compare a percent and a constant were conducted. The research findings confirm there is a correlation between the regions and the use of earnings to finance innovations by small and medium-sized enterprises. Thus, there are regions that differ greatly in whether SMEs finance innovations from their own sources. Moreover, a correlation between the regions and the use of the EU funds to finance innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises was confirmed.