Perceived Innovativeness and Competitiveness of Early-Stage Entrepreneurs

In our paper we study the perceived innovativeness of entrepreneurs, i.e. owners and managers of start-ups in three neighboring countries—Slovenia, Croatia, and Hungary—based on the research framework and adult population surveys within the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research cycles in 2016 and 2017. Innovativeness is studied as a multidimensional process: from the perspective of technologies, product innovations, and competition. Our results show that higher innovativeness of products/services produced by early-stage entrepreneurs is associated with higher levels of technological innovativeness and with lower levels of market competition. Neither gender nor age shows a statistically significant relationship with the product/service innovativeness of early-stage entrepreneurs. The results also show that the specific institutional environment in each country does not moderate the relationships between the innovativeness of products/services on one hand, and technological and market competition viewpoints of innovativeness, on the other.