Research and development activity as a growth factor of foreign owned SMEs in selected Central and Eastern European countries

This paper aims to explore the role of R&D activity as a factor of growth of foreign owned SMEs in selected Central Eastern European countries (Croatia, former East Germany, Poland and Romania). The paper is based on the micro-level approach, i.e. it focuses on the characteristics of foreign owned SMEs in the selected countries where the population of foreign owned SMEs in each country is divided into two groups. The first group consists of the firms that have achieved high growth, and the control group consists of the remaining firms.