OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook 2023 / OECD.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

OECD, author.

Series:

OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook Series

OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Finance.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (484 pages).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Paris : OECD Publishing ; : Éditions OCDE, 2023.

Summary:

Over the past few years, the global economy has suffered profound shocks that have had a marked impact on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs. While government support protected SMEs from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, new threats have emerged. Rising geopolitical tensions and global financial risks, high inflation, tightening monetary and fiscal policies, labour shortages, high trade barriers and slowing integration into global value chains all contribute to a more challenging business environment for SMEs. Meanwhile, there is an urgent need to accelerate the contribution of SMEs and entrepreneurship to the green and digital transitions and help them navigate a changing international trade and investment landscape. Against this background, the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook 2023 provides new evidence on recent trends in SME performance, changing business conditions, and policy implications. It reflects on the broad underlying theme of SME integration into a series of networks, including global production and supply-chain networks and the role of women led-businesses in international trade, knowledge and innovation networks, and skill ecosystems, as well as the main policies in place to ensure SMEs can integrate these networks and benefit from the ongoing transformations they go through. The report also contains statistical country profiles that benchmark the 38 OECD across a set of indicators.

Contents:

Intro

Preface

Foreword

Table of contents

Acronyms and abbreviations

Country groupings

Executive summary

1 Recent SME developments and forthcoming challenges

Recent SME performance has been uneven across firms, sectors and countries

Firm dynamics have displayed marked heterogeneity across countries and sectors

Firm entry growth slowed markedly and exits accelerated in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine

Bankruptcies accelerated in 2022

Micro firms have outperformed SMEs in the past two years

Number of firms

Start-ups

Sales

Value-added and employment

Productivity and wages

SMEs face mounting short-term challenges

SMEs direct exposure to Ukraine and Russia is limited

Elevated uncertainties and geopolitical tensions

Inflation and rising costs

Heightening labour and skill shortages

Supply-chain pressures

Tightened credit conditions

Change in the nature of direct fiscal support to SMEs

The pace of digitalisation is rapid but still brings challenges to SMEs

The transition to a decarbonised economy requires rethinking industrial systems and business models

References

Part I Thematic chapters

2 The role of networks for SME innovation, resilience and sustainability

SMEs need to transform and their networks can enable them to leapfrog

SMEs are part of a complex network of networks

Networks are critical for SME transitions towards higher productivity, resilience and sustainability

Networks can enable SMEs to leapfrog

SMEs can achieve greater resilience through their networks

Greater sustainability for networking and networks for greater sustainability

SMEs' ability to integrate networks and take advantage of them remains limited

There is a large range of policy measures to support SME network expansion

Annex 2.A. Definitions.

Circular economy (CE)

Circular trade

Corporate social responsibility (CSR)

Environmental, social and governance (ESG)

Growth

Innovation

Open innovation

Resilience

Responsible business conduct (RBC)

Sustainability

Annex 2.B. Networks and their impact on SME performance: Insights from the literature

Annex 2.C. Agglomeration benefits in innovation and production networks

Notes

3 Women-led firms in international trade

Issue

Exporting by entrepreneurs and gender export gaps

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

Challenges accessing international markets

Policies to support women business leaders in trade

Applying a gender lens to trade agreements

Ensuring market access for goods and services produced and consumed by women and their businesses

Implementing trade-facilitating measures

Ensuring inclusive access to the Internet and digital spaces

Ensuring trade promotion services reach women exporters and cater to their needs

Providing adequate finance, including trade finance and promoting financial literacy

Ensuring professional and business networks are inclusive of women

Closing data gaps

Annex 3.A. Descriptive statistics of Future of Business Survey sample

4 SMEs in more resilient, sustainable and circular supply chains

Introduction and background

Issue: Challenges and opportunities for SMEs in existing and emerging GVCs

SMEs can benefit from global integration

SMEs are well placed to support the deployment of circular and sustainable models

SMEs face challenges in leveraging opportunities from GVC integration

Recent shocks and structural changes in GVCs

Global supply chains are increasingly exposed

FDI has also been affected

Threats to GVCs are increasing in magnitude and frequency.

Impact of recent disruptions in GVCs on SMEs

The structural transformation in GVCs is poised to intensify

SMEs in more resilient, sustainable and circular GVCs

GVCs trajectories towards resilience and impact on SME ecosystems

GVCs shifts towards sustainability and impact on SME ecosystems

SME&amp

E policy action for more resilient, sustainable and circular GVCs

A generic approach

Reshoring strategic activities

Diversify the global integration of SMEs

Regionalisation of GVCs

Enhancing GVC sustainability and circularity

Annex 4.A. Russia and Ukraine in global trade

Annex 4.B. Structural changes in GVCs

Political globalisation and geopolitical context

Climate change, fairness and sustainability

How the rationale for organising global production networks can evolve

5 Knowledge and innovation networks for SMEs and start-ups

Issue: The importance of knowledge and innovation networks for SMEs and start-ups

SMEs amidst shifting innovation networks: Structural and emerging trends

Clusters are increasing SME connections

For a few high-performing SMEs, dynamic VC markets provide strong network spillovers

For a few high-performing SMEs, integration in - often more disruptive - R&amp

D networks is intensifying

Open innovation and partnerships continue to spread including to a broader population of SMEs

Knowledge service providers have become key co-operation partners for many SMEs

SMEs are operating a massive migration to the cloud and platform technologies

A number of threats weigh on future SME capacity to build and expand linkages

The role of public policy in shaping and strengthening SME knowledge and innovation networks.

About one-third of policies aim at connecting SMEs to knowledge and innovation networks, with a more complementary role for other types of linkages

There is a clear policy focus on "traditional" innovation channels and more accessible forms of strategic partnerships

Innovation-related network policies have a strong international orientation

Governments could use digital platforms more to strengthen SME integration into knowledge and innovation networks

While public action displays an overall high degree of targeting, specific firm populations may fall off the radar

Annex 5.A. Additional statistical material

6 Upskilling, reskilling and finding talent: The role of SME ecosystems

SME skills needs are evolving rapidly due to the digital and green transition

Skills are key to SME competitiveness and resilience

Skills needs are evolving rapidly, with the increasing prominence of "transversal skills"

The accelerated digitalisation of economies and the pressure for achieving sustainability are the main drivers of changing skill needs

Several short-term and structural factors limit SMEs' access to talent

As labour markets tighten and demand for transversal skills increases, skill gaps and shortages have become widespread and are especially pronounced for SMEs

Short-term shortages disproportionally impact SMEs and entrepreneurs

Short-term shortage amplify structural challenges SMEs and entrepreneurs face in accessing skills

Skills policies need to account for the specificities of SMEs

Against this backdrop, commonly deployed skills policies are mostly generic in nature

Skills ecosystems play an important role in delivering bundles of transversal skills to SMEs and entrepreneurs

Recent policy developments are increasingly tailored to SMEs and delivered with spatial lenses.

Conclusion

Part II Country profiles

7 Reader's guide

Reader's guide

SME sector structure and performance

Entrepreneurship and business dynamics

SME indebtedness

Women in trade and gender gap

SME integration in GVCs, linkages with foreign markets and multinationals

SME networks for innovation, growth and resilience

Upskilling, reskilling and finding talent: the role of SME ecosystems

Caveats and caution in interpretation

8 Country Profiles

Australia

Women in trade and gender export gap

Knowledge and innovation networks

Austria

Entrepreneurship

Global production networks and value chains

Belgium

Canada

Chile

Colombia

SME indebtedness.

Women in trade and gender export gap.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

92-64-89576-0

92-64-86345-1