Innovation and Organisational Culture in Small and Medium-Sized High-Tech Companies

Small and medium-­sized high-tech companies (SMHTCs) are a very grateful and promising object of scientific study since they combine a market and production orientation with the logic of a research group. This is especially pronounced within so-called academic entrepreneurship. They focus on business performance as well as on  the strategy of knowledge management and cognitive mobilisation. In considering SMHTCs, we will pay attention to their (specific) socio-cultural aspects of the exchange and circulation of knowledge and absorptive capacity for new ideas and information. We are interested in the link between organisational change, organisational culture and forms of social capital on one hand and strategies for knowledge management on the other. The relevance of using models of open innovation and co­innovation and identifying the potential for the expansion and growth of SMHTCs will be put under scrutiny. The study will be comparative in the sense that the Slovenian findings will be complemented and compared with the findings for Poland and Sweden. With the help of critical use of secondary data from various sources (national statistics, Eurostat, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Innovation Union Scoreboard etc.), we intend to complement the qualitative data and assess the extent to which the economic crisis is affecting the creation and growth of SMHTCs, and what are the trends in all three countries as well as on the level of the EU. In pursuing these objectives, we hope to obtain potentially significant insights relevant to research and industrial as well as employment policies.