Qualifying connections between innovations and existence of gazelles in the service sector of the Slovak Republic

Abstract

Nowadays, Slovakia’ economy records high growth rate, while its main qualifying factor is the recovery of do-mestic consumption. It is only the high unemployment rate that remains as a negative feature, while employment of young people can be described as critical. The existing structural unemployment is a challenge to mobilisation of new entrepreneurial opportunities and dynamisation of already existing enterprising via innovations. The subject of investigation in this scientific paper is high-growth service enterprises and their subgroup of gazelles. The paper evaluates the innovation background of gazelles’ existence in the SR. The starting-point is the functionality of innovation background in the economy and the scope of application of the transformative power of service innovation. Slovakia is lagging behind the EU27 average in innovation activity, and the service innovation asserts itself in its economy to a limited extent. However, despite the fact that according to the parameter minitored ‟the share of turnover from the launching ‟new-to-the-market innovation”, innovations are applied on an above-the-average level. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the innovation background of the Slovak economy as a key factor of dynamisation of small and mediumsized enterprises and the rise of gazelles in the service sector of the SR.