Innovativeness as a Source of Competitive Advantage for Entrepreneurial Ventures and Small Business

Abstract

Competitive advantage lies in the mindset of the specifics of an organization that make it different than other primarily because of the way of meeting the needs of customers / clients, which results in a generally greater impact. The aim is not only to gain a competitive advantage rather than aim to make it sustainable competitive advantage, because it is very complex to mimic, at a time when competition is trying to take over the business model. The most stable and long-term source of sustainable competitive advantage is innovation in business. However, innovation is the basic and exclusive peculiarity of entrepreneurial ventures and small businesses. The above assertion is based on J. Schumpeter, who said that entrepreneurs are primarily innovators that create the conditions for profit by creating a temporary monopoly by means of organizational and technological innovation. With their proactive approach, they constantly disturb the existing state of equilibrium (creative destruction) that favoured existing business actors forcing them to respond to emerging threats, while in return they provide business opportunities through new market space. The main intention of the paper, i.e. its objective, is reflected in the determination of the degree of interdependence of innovative entrepreneurial ventures, with different levels of maturity, and business success, starting from basic research assumptions (hypotheses) to a higher level of innovation which means business success observed in the level of development of the enterprise. Set research intentions will be implemented by means of quantitative analysis, using the appropriate mathematical and statistical procedures (Pearson’s correlation) conditioned by the nature of available databases based on the GEM methodology and comparison of global capabilities.