Innovation in Irans small and medium size enterprises (SMEs): Prioritize influence factors affecting innovation of SMEs, using analytic network process (ANP) method

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to prioritize the different types of innovation and influencing factors affecting innovations of small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) in Iran, using multiple criteria framework. Analytical network process (ANP) has been used to develop the framework, because of the dependency among measures and the antecedents. Yet another reason to use ANP is that it provides relatively more reliable results compared to the other similar methods. To achieve this goal the judgments of experts have been collected through interviews and questionnaires, without interacting and not knowing each other's judgments. As SMEs are historically considered to be the engine of economic growth and innovation which could be the heart of this engine, the results would prepare the ground for entrepreneurs, managers and strategists to better understand the related factors and direct their efforts toward implementing them based upon their relative importance. Our result show that innovations rarely occur in an isolated context where in the first five influencing factors we can find at least one factor from each cluster. The most influence factors affecting innovation in Iran's SMEs are: Stage of industry, demand, industry-university linkage, attitude toward change, and size and age.