How to Recognize a Creative SME?

Abstract

In the actual knowledge-based economy, intangible assets are crucial. Those assets cannot be created without the creativity of the employees. Despite the phenomenal amount of works published on creativity, only a few are related to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). Furthermore, a literature review made evident that a proper definition of what is a creative SME does not exist, even though it is important for practitioners, researchers and professionals in this domain. A definition of a creative SME needs to include external characteristics, ones that are easy to recognize from an observer's point of view. This research is thus trying to answer the following question: "How can we recognize a creative SME?" By using a Delphi with a group of experts, the researchers obtained a list of characteristics to recognize a creative SME. A case-study based research on internal factors that affect creative SME characteristics will follow. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2014.