ROLE OF INNOVATION IN SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IN KOSOVO.

Previous research on the application of innovations in Kosovo have shown that businesses and other institutions have a low level of creating something new. Despite some efforts to change this situation still innovations remain a challenge in Kosovo despite the benefits they bring. This paper discusses the challenges the problems and benefits of small innovations. From the research on the vision for economic development for the future in Kosovo, economic development is focused on innovative opportunities for each sector, innovations in technology, delivery of new products, saying in a word creation of a new phenomenon that enables business development. For this reason, this paper first looked at how small businesses are aware of the innovations and the opportunities they bring to them? Secondly, this paper discusses the innovations that small companies have used and their impact on business development, and finally about the problems and difficulties that small enterprises have encountered with the application of innovations. The methodology used in this paper is the empirical method from which primary data will be analyzed taken from 100 small businesses in Kosovo. Analysis of the results was done through the SPSS program and it was proved that small businesses in Kosovo do not apply enough innovations and as a result businesses have little development. The results of this paper show that a large part of small businesses do not have the slightest idea of what innovations are (26% of the survey) and not talk about their application. Another part of the businesses even though they have the knowledge of the term innovation and the benefits they bring, they do not apply innovations (47% of businesses surveyed) because of unfavorable conditions to undertake something new. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]