The Role of SMEs Within a Turbulent and Constantly Changing Business Environment: Trends, Challenges and Sustainable Growth Policies in Europe

The chapter provides a more comprehensive understanding of the SME landscape through the analysis of SMEs’ positioning within the world economy and their ability to produce value added by developing innovation and growth activities resulting in value-added outputs. More analytically, it presents an overview of the broad role of SMEs within a large-scale world economy by illustrating a landscape analysis while presenting the major trends and challenges along with the policy framework in Europe in terms of industrial policies, innovation policies, ecosystems and growth initiatives.