Abstract
Exploring a suitable methodology for measuring SME's innovation is critical to managing and directing economic growth. The Middle East countries such as Gulf Cooperation Counsels GCC embarked on finding an innovative methodology to support economic sustainability and prosperity transformations, which has led to a rise in the services sector fields and the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) activities and its profit returns. This study aims to evaluate the innovation outputs of SMEs activities in the sport and fitness sector in particular, Kuwait & Bahrain for the period 2015-2019. In addition, it focuses on the Fuzzy Logic Set methodology used to benchmark the SMEs› innovation performance and to identify the degree of innovativeness in SMEs. The proposed assessment methodology consisted of three methods, i.e. innovation audit, mapping innovation, and Fuzzy Logic Set. The study applied Fuzzy Logic to measure innovation activities outputs in twenty SMEs in the fitness industry in Kuwait and Bahrain. Data was collected based on surveys and interviews with top managers of selected SMEs. The contribution of this research is the introduction of a new approach to measure innovation activities outputs based on an innovation audit, mapping innovation, and Fuzzy Logic Set. The results show that the proposed assessment methodology is effective. In addition, it was discovered that there are some similarities between the innovation attributes of SMEs in Kuwait and Bahrain in the performance of innovation management. It been noticed that both countries were using innovations related to products and services in the fitness industry. However, it been observed that process innovation was limited. The study recommends applying this assessment methodology to measuring innovation activities outputs to other private and public sectors in SMEs or large factors to monitoring the profits growth and setting new strategies and policies that pave that way for innovation in the country.
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