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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

When taking closer look at the second construct – proactive
innovation, involvement of top management on innovation
(Q11), introduction of new products and its significance (Q13,
Q14), increase in sales (Q15) show the highest level of intensity
of influence. On the other hand, R&D expenditure and its impact
on revenue (Q16-17) show lower level of intensity. The answer
to this could be the third construct – innovation management,
where it can be seen that SMEs put the highest emphasis on open
innovation as innovating via open innovation rather than own
investments into R&D is more flexible, faster and more cost
efficient. What is very interesting, is the gradual drop of
influence of the item Q9 – business collaboration. The highest
intensity of influence of this item on the third construct can be
seen in Austria (0.993). In Czech Republic, it is slightly lower
(0.875) but can still be considered as significant. However,
loading value of this item in Slovakia fell down below the cut-
off value 0.7, it is only 0.645. This could be explained by the
maturity of the markets itself and still prevailing competitive
rather than collaborative way of doing business in the post
communistic countries (Czech Republic and Slovakia). Proving
the significance and validity of these relationships leads to a
conclusion that the areas of innovation and CSR are two strongly
interconnected fields, especially in SMEs where the single
business aspects have to be more in line with each other and the
structure as such is very fragile. Especially, at the times of
economic crisis SMEs can be more vulnerable (Kolasa et al.
2010; Ferrando et al. 2014), however, there are certain studies
that show contradictory results and see the SMEs as the ones
who can possibly grow and move the economy (Moscarini,
Postel-Vinay 2012). Time will show how the upcoming crisis
will affect SMEs and if their importance in the economy proves
to be crucial. Nevertheless, innovation and CSR will remain
crucial topics and inevitable core competencies for SMEs to
remain competitive. In the next step of the statistical analysis of
empirical data, reliability analysis confirmed the homogeneity of
the constructs (see table 6).

Table 6 Reliability analysis

Factor

Items

Innovation

oriented

CSR

Reliability of the

factor

(Cronbach`s

alpha for the

construct 0.99)

Reliability of the

factor

(Cronbach`s

alpha for the

construct 0.99)

Reliability of the

factor

(Cronbach`s

alpha for the

construct 0.99)

Q19

0.99

0.97

Q20

0.99

0.97

Q21

0.99

0.97

Q22

0.99

0.97

Q23

0.99

0.97

Q24

0.99

0.97

Q25

0.99

0.97

Q26

0.99

0.97

Q27

0.99

0.97

Q28

0.99

0.97

Q29

0.99

0.97

Q30

0.99

0.97

Q31

0.99

0.97

Q32

0.99

0.97

Q34

0.99

0.97

Q35

0.99

0.97

Q36

0.99

0.97

Q38

0.99

0.97

Q39

0.99

0.97

Q40

0.99

0.97

Q41

0.99

0.97

Q43

0.99

0.97

Q45

0.99

0.97

Q46

0.99

0.97

Q47

0.99

0.97

Proactive

innovation

Reliability of the

factor

(Cronbach`s

alpha for the

construct 0.97)

Reliability of the

factor

(Cronbach`s

alpha for the

construct 0.97)

Reliability of the

factor

(Cronbach`s

alpha for the

construct 0.94)

0.96

0.97

0.94

0.96

0.97

0.94

Q11

0.96

0.97

0.94

Q13

0.96

0.94

Q14

0.96

0.93

Q15

0.96

0.93

Q16

0.96

0.97

0.94

Q17

0.96

0.97

0.94

Q18

0.96

0.93

Innovation

management

Reliability of the

factor

(Cronbach`s

alpha for the

construct 0.91)

Reliability of the

factor

(Cronbach`s

alpha for the

construct 0.91)

Reliability of the

factor

(Cronbach`s

alpha for the

construct 0.81)

Q10

0.89

0.69

0.87

0.84

0.74

0.84

0.90

0.78

Source: author`s own – based on empirical research

Cronbach`s alpha for each item is smaller than Cronbach`s alpha
for the construct. To make the model valid, values of Cronbach`s
alpha for each item has to be lower than values of Cronbach`s
alpha for the corresponding construct. If this condition wouldn`t
be met, item would have to be excluded so that the functionality
of the model is reached.

Table 7 Reliability – Cronbach`s Alpha

Construct

Innovation oriented CSR

0.99

Proactive innovation

0.97

0.94

Innovation management

0.91

0.81

Source: author`s own – based on empirical research

Values of the constructs are higher than 0.9 besides innovation
management construct for Slovakia (0.81 – see table 7). These
values of Cronbach`s alpha can be considered as high what
proves the reliability of the model.

AVE is the average of square roots of loadings of items within
the factor. Values of AVE should be higher than 0.5. As it can be
seen from table 8 – condition was met. Each AVE value for all
three researched countries have values higher than 0.5.

Table 8 Convergent validity AVE

Construct

Innovation oriented CSR

0.8622

0.8713

0.7136

Proactive innovation

0.8351

0.8312

0.7206

Innovation management

0.8357

0.8320

0.6473

Source: author`s own – based on empirical research

Correlation among constructs defined in the model – Innovation
oriented CSR, Proactive innovation and Innovation management
are high (see table 9) and significant at the level of significance
alpha 0.05 (p-values 0.000).

Table 9 Correlation coefficients

Correlation

Country

Innovation oriented CSR

Proactive innovation

0.949

0.977

0.912

Innovation management

0.899

0.937

0.862

Proactive innovation

Innovation management

0.942

0.949

0.903

Source: author`s own – based on empirical research

These correlations demonstrate the valid and significant
dependence of the two areas – innovation and CSR and further
confirm the assumption stated in this study that innovative SMEs
can be highly aware and engaged in CSR without explicitly
concentrating its business resources on it and implementing
some kind of structured approach as it can be seen in large
companies. Thus, H1: Innovative SMEs can be highly socially
responsible despite applying unstructured approach to CSR can
be considered as supported.

Second hypothesis, H2: Correlation between innovativeness of
SME and conducting CSR activities is low can also be
considered as supported as items Q33 and Q37 measuring
significance of regular conducting of CSR activities with the
purpose of mitigating negative impacts of business activities on
either community or environment and pre-defined metrics usage
Q42 were excluded from the model due to low loading values
(Q33: 0.434, Q37: 0.385, Q42: 0.396). Such low values mean
there is significant impact of these items on the corresponding
construct of the model.

Similar reasoning was used to confirm the third hypothesis. H3:
There is no need for innovative SME to apply specific CSR
policies in order to have high CSR engagement. Item 44 (Q44)

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