THE COMPETITIVENESS OF SMES IN THE EU MEMBER STATES. CHALLENGES AND LESSONS AHEAD FOR ROMANIA.

The competitiveness of the SME sector is one of the key factors of development in the current context. The primary aim of our research is to analyse the strengths of the SMEs in the EU from the perspective of their competitiveness and to formulate some practices and strategies to be applied by Romanian SMEs to reach an improved level of competitiveness. A theoretical perspective of competitiveness of SME is presented as well as several proofs for a set of three directions for gaining and enhancing SMEs competitiveness: the adoption of e-business, the internationalisation process and the adoption of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]