Vloga značilnosti managerjev majhnih in srednje velikih podjetij in njihovega povezovanja pri tehnološkem razvoju, inovativnosti in rasti

Scientific background: Technological development and innovativeness are important aspects of small and medium sized enterprise (SME) development, growth and wealth creation. SME managers are central for performance of their firms and are usually crucial decision makers for introduction of technological newness and innovation. The network perspective can be important for entrepreneurship, in general, and for innovation and technology development in management of SMEs, in particular, at both the individual level and the organizational level. The personality of managers of SMEs may be crucial for their SME-related decisions.
Problem identification: In this study, we address the research issue (how do network and psychological characteristics of managers of SMEs impact their firm technological development, innovativeness and growth), which has not been given enough emphasis in past reseach, by investigating the network and psychological characteristics of managers of SMEs as important antecedents of technological development, innovativeness and growth of firms.
Research objectives: Key research objectives are to develop and empirically test a model linking (through hypotheses) network and psychological characteristics of managers of SMEs (resource-acquisition networking elements, psychological elements – specific and general) and technological development, innovativeness and growth of firms, as well as providing important suggestions for performance improvements of Slovenian SMEs.