SMEs that grow have a considerable positive impact on employment creation, innovation, productivity growth and competitiveness. Digital technologies and global value chains offer new opportunities for SMEs to participate in the global economy, innovate and strengthen productivity. Yet SMEs are lagging behind in the digital transition and are disproportionately affected by market failures, trade barriers, policy inefficiencies and the quality of institutions. A cross-cutting approach to SME policy can enhance SME innovation and scale-up, as well as their contributions to inclusive growth. This includes a business environment conducive to risk-taking and experimentation by entrepreneurs, as well as access to entrepreneurship competencies, management and workforce skills, technology, innovation, and networks.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that scale up have long raised policy interest for their extraordinary potential in terms of job creation, innovation, competitiveness and economic growth. Yet, little is known about which firms could effectively become scalers, and what policies could effectively promote SME growth.

Strengthening linkages between foreign direct investment (FDI) and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is important to boost productivity and innovation across countries and regions in the OECD and beyond. This policy toolkit offers policy advice to national and subnational governments on how to increase knowledge and technology benefits from FDI on domestic SMEs and the local economy.

The new OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook presents the latest trends in performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and provides a comprehensive overview of business conditions and policy frameworks for SMEs and entrepreneurs. This year’s edition provides comparative evidence on business dynamism, productivity growth, wage gaps and export trends by firm size across OECD countries and emerging economies.

Start-ups and scale-ups often make outsized contributions to innovation and job creation. This report examines the entrepreneurial ecosystems of three of Denmark's sector strongholds, sectors where future growth is likely to be generated - advanced production, energy technology and food and bio resources.

In recent years Korea has stepped up efforts to reduce inequalities in recognition that a fairer economic model is also the most sustainable one. In order to support this new policy direction, the OECD has carried out novel analysis of inclusive growth building on its Framework for Policy Action, developed by the OECD to improve the prospects of the groups left behind.

The Missing Entrepreneurs 2019 is the fifth edition in a series of biennial reports that examine how public policies at national, regional and local levels can support job creation, economic growth and social inclusion by overcoming obstacles to business start-ups and self-employment by people from disadvantaged or under-represented groups in entrepreneurship.

This report marks the third edition in this series, following assessments in 2012 and 2016. It provides a comprehensive overview of the state of play in the implementation of the ten SBA principles, and monitors progress made since 2016. It also identifies remaining challenges affecting SMEs in the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries and provides recommendations to address them based on EU and international good practice examples.

As in most OECD countries, the pandemic triggered a deep recession in Portugal and put huge pressure on the healthcare system. The policy response helped to weather the shock and the recovery has gained speed, sustained by progress in vaccination.

Despite potentially tremendous benefits, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lag in the digital transformation. Emerging technologies, as diverse as they are, offer a range of applications for them to improve performance and overcome the size-related limitations they face in doing business. However, SMEs must be better prepared, and stakes are high. SMEs make the most of the industrial fabric in many countries and regions, they create jobs (most jobs sometimes) and are the cement of inclusive and sustainable societies.