Factors Affecting The Innovation Performance of Turkish SMEs

Kadir Has University has launched a research project under the direction of Assoc. Prof. Ceyda Maden Eyiusta, Faculty Member of Business Administration Department. Dubbed “Factors Affecting the Innovation Performance of Turkish SMEs: Powerful Leadership Tactics & HR Management Practices That Spur Innovation”, the project is funded by TÜBİTAK 1001 – Scientific and Technological Research Projects Support Program and is expected to fill in a major gap in the literature. 

SMEs (small & medium-sized enterprises) constitute 99% of Turkey’s business landscape. Moreover, one in every three Turkish employers is an SME. The role they, therefore, play in Turkey’s economy is significant. That said, one is left to ask three questions: What sorts of leadership tactics lie behind their innovation success? How do they exploit their human capital to boost their innovation performance? Do they draw from more than one strategy?

Assoc. Prof. Ceyda Maden Eyiusta –Faculty Member of Business Administration Department at Kadir Has University, who focuses much of her attention on what factors affect the SME innovation performance both at the individual and organizational level- claims that very few researchers have looked at what kind(s) of leadership tactics and approaches to human capital drive SMEs’ performance when it comes to innovation. In an attempt to fill in that void, she applied to TÜBİTAK (Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey) for a grant to study that exact issue.

The project titled “Factors Affecting the Innovation Performance of Turkish SMEs: Powerful Leadership Tactics & HR Management Practices That Spur Innovation” became entitled to get funding within TÜBİTAK’s 1001 – Scientific & Technological Research Projects Support Program: 260,620 Turkish Liras. Launched on August 1, 2019, the project will run until January 1, 2022.

Assoc. Prof. Eyiusta’s project includes Asst. Prof. Ayla Esen from Bahçeşehir University and PhD student Ahmet Tuncay Nergis from KHAS Business Administration Department. The team hired a research company to collect the data via surveys from 140 SMEs (including 700 employees and business owners) concentrated in nine Turkish provinces: İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Bursa, Adana, Antalya, Konya, Mersin, and Kocaeli.

How is the team carrying out the research? In short, the project contains five stages: (roughly speaking) doing a pilot project, collecting data from the sample, analyzing the data, testing hypotheses and findings, and putting together a ‘business innovation self-assessment tool’ for business owners and managers alike. The first stage of the data collection has already been completed and the project team has started the data analysis.

The project’s main goal is to examine what impact various leadership tactics and strategies for exploiting human capital (to boost innovation) thus have on innovation performance among Turkish SMEs – especially when it comes to molding employee morale and the corporate climate – both at the individual and organizational level. Subgoals determined towards this main goal as follows:

Through survey data set conducted with 700 employees and business owners from 140 SMEs operating in 9 provinces, where 61% of all SME employees of Turkey lie;

• To find out whether or not there is any meaningful relationship between individual innovation and organizational innovation performance.
• To see whether there is any meaningful relationship between ‘empowering’ leadership behaviors and individual innovation. If yes, how do these behaviors influence individual innovation in SMEs?
• To uncover whether there is any meaningful relationship between strategies for exploiting human capital to drive innovation (e.g., prioritizing innovation during recruitment, using skills development, performance evaluation, and rewards to measure innovation) and individual innovation. If yes, how do these behaviors influence individual innovation in SMEs?