Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are particularly dependent from external networks to access strategic resources, such as knowledge, technology, finance or skills, and to innovate and grow. Networks are also a source of resilience and sustainability. They can take different forms beyond buyer-supplier relationships, reflecting the linkages SMEs develop with their ecosystem through exchanges of products, services, assets, or through open innovation and collaboration. Such networks encompass production networks, knowledge and innovation networks (involving universities and providers of knowledge-intensive business service), and strategic partnerships. Clusters are often needed to create proximity and agglomeration benefits. Digital platforms and technologies are instrumental for knowledge transfer and network effects. This chapter discusses SMEs’ ability to join innovation and growth networks and to take advantage of them. It presents an overview of the wide range of policy measures to support SME network expansion, and it introduces the following thematic chapters of the report.

Businesses led by women are less likely to export to foreign markets than those led by men. This gender export gap has distributive implications as women-led SMEs are not able to take equal advantage of the scale and productivity benefits of international trade. This chapter examines this phenomenon using data from almost 10.000 firms surveyed on Facebook. The results show that both sector and firm size contribute to the gender export gap but cannot fully explain it, and also reveal other gendered variation in export behaviour. The chapter further examines the challenges that women entrepreneurs face when exporting and explores some of the policy levers and programmes governments can use to support women in trade.

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can access new markets, knowledge spillovers and trade finance, by engaging in global value chains (GVCs). They have become strategic partners in global production networks, as firms and places seek to gain strategic autonomy and resilience, and re-balance the imperatives of competitiveness with those of sustainability and due diligence. This chapter discusses the transformations at play in global trade and international investment, and implications for SME policy makers. It looks into the disruptions the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine brought in logistics and supply chains. It analyses the growing threats natural disasters and cyberattacks pose to GVCs. It explores how technological change, digitalisation, servicification, and the call for greener, more circular and more responsible business conduct, can alter the structure of global production (e.g. reshoring, nearshoring, diversification, regionalisation, etc.) and affect SME ecosystems. It concludes with an overview of recent policy action taken in OECD countries for creating a supportive environment to SME integration in shifting GVCs and for lowering the costs of the transition.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to transform and innovate, and their participation in global and local knowledge and innovation networks is essential to leapfrog. This chapter aims to provide a forward-looking view on how SME networks may evolve in the current global context, how governments can support small businesses to participate in different networks to source the strategic assets they need, and where further policy attention could be placed. The chapter first explores the notion of networks and their impact on SME innovation, resilience and growth. It then looks at structural and emerging trends across different types of SME knowledge and innovation networks, including strategic partnerships and clusters, highlighting disruptions of increasing magnitude that these networks have experienced in recent years. The last section presents an overview of key policy orientations in the field, based on an experimental mapping of 601 national policies and 150 institutions in support of SME network expansion across the OECD.

Against the backdrop of international shocks, this chapter propose a narrative concerning the skills needs of SMEs that does not focus on technical competencies but rather on bundles of transversal skills, related to the way in which SMEs and entrepreneurs develop their business, cope with digital innovations and connect to partners and customers. These bundles of skills encompass “capabilities”: entrepreneurial competencies that affect resilience and competitiveness of SMEs and entrepreneurs. The chapter also discusses the limitations for SMEs and entrepreneurs to internalise all the skills they need and argues that they can leverage their “ecosystem”. There are international examples of policies that provide SMEs and entrepreneurs with training opportunities and connections to improve their transversal skills. Several of these policy actions have an explicit spatial dimension, as they accompany SMEs and entrepreneurs, locally. However, often these policies are small in scale, or disconnected from other policy agendas