Factors Determining Business Eco-Innovation Activities: A Case of Slovak SMEs

The purpose of the chapter is to identify and assess the importance of motives and barriers to eco-innovations among small- and medium-sized Slovak enterprises. The authors expect that the size of the company could be an important factor, influencing the different perceptions of motives and barriers to eco-innovation activities among small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The chapter analyzes empirical data on barriers and motives to eco-innovation. The research sample consisted of randomly selected small- and medium-sized enterprises in Slovakia. The structure of the sample was representative of the population according to the size of the respondents. The analysis was carried out on a total of 487 SMEs in Slovakia that completed the electronic questionnaire within the period from December 2022 to April 2023. The authors subjected the answers obtained to the analysis of the importance of individual barriers and motives of eco-innovations, while separately assessing the order of the factors of eco-innovations considering the size groups of enterprises. The results obtained from the study conducted brought some conclusions similar to those of other studies from selected countries of the European Union. However, we identified barriers that were specifically highly rated among SMEs in Slovakia.