INNOVATION MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT AS DRIVER OF GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS.

The Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) is a collaborative instrument for developing business/technological/research partnerships for entities around the world especially SME's (Small and Medium sized Enterprises). One of the key factors for business development is innovation. Innovation management can be assessed using specific methods and instruments. One of these methods is the approach developed by the ImP3ove Academy. The ImP3ove methodology is based on an on-line questionnaire which is filled out by the entity. The questionnaire contains a set of questions from different innovation management dimensions. These dimensions are: Innovation Strategy, Organization and culture, Innovation life cycle processes, Enabling factors and Innovation results. After filling the questionnaire, according to the entity's needs regarding to innovation management, a customized benchmark can be applied. Based on ImP3ove database the benchmark can be generated for industry sectors, countries and company size or age classes. Using the filled questionnaire and the benchmarking selection the on-line software based on the ImP3ove methodology can generate a report. This report contains the relevant elements of the innovation management assessment structured on the innovation management dimensions. The paper also presents the results and analysis of the innovation management assessment for various Romanian entities. The results of the innovation management assessment can contribute to the business development, increasing market visibility and increasing client confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]