This book brings together papers presented at the 3rd Conference of Research in Economics and Management (CIREG) held in Morocco in May 2016. With a focus on the challenges of SMEs and innovative solutions, they highlight the contribution of researchers in the fields of business and management, with all their micro and macro-economic aspects. They shed light on the universal scientific vision of the importance of SMEs with answers relevant to their local context and adapted to their specific national situation. The relevance of SME research lies in its heuristic value of analyzing change, rather than in constructing a category, a particularly useful empirical concept. This third volume is focused on marketing and human resources.

This book brings together papers presented at the 3rd Conference of Research in Economics and Management (CIREG) held in Morocco in May 2016. With a focus on the challenges of SMEs and innovative solutions, they highlight the contribution of researchers in the fields of business and management, with all their micro and macro-economic aspects. They shed light on the universal scientific vision of the importance of SMEs with answers relevant to their local context and adapted to their specific national situation. The relevance of SME research lies in its heuristic value of analyzing change, rather than in constructing a category, a particularly useful empirical concept. This first volume is focused on economic issues.

Risk management practices are growing both in number and complexity in businesses, notably driven by new regulatory standards that feature risk management at their core. Although large businesses are more likely to adopt a formal, holistic approach to risk management, the stakes are just as high for SMEs. Risk management in SMEs can contribute to a certain organizational, entrepreneurial and partnership dynamic which constitutes a real opportunity to evolve practices and improve performance. This book offers varied responses to this question by combining conceptual approaches, empirical illustrations and the associated managerial implications.

In an uncertain economy where business risk is significant, the company tends to rely more on its environment than to invest, for example, in all steps of technological creation; This can be explained by the fact that investments in the acquisition (ownership) of production resources are less expensive than those implied in the formation of these resources; which also explains the attractiveness (in an open economy) of regions with abundant scientific and technical resources. To understand and analyze the innovation process in order to better design and launch new goods, services and technologies, one has to consider the creative dimension of the individual, the business and the organization in general. In new approaches to innovation, the entrepreneur and the company are analyzed through their skills, and their function of resource generation; Innovation thus becomes endogenous, gradual or radical, integrated in a complex process with many feedbacks and interactions. The innovative organization (small or large) is presented in this book as a dynamic system composed of specific and diverse skills (including those of the contractor, engineers or managers). By acquiring, combining and mobilizing these skills, the innovative agent (entrepreneur or company) can create technological resources and develop relations with its environment. Hence the importance of management in design, implementation, protection of intellectual property as well as of the development of new goods, services and technology, commercial and organizational models.

Innovation, in economic activity, in managerial concepts and in engineering design, results from creative activities, entrepreneurial strategies and the business climate. Innovation leads to technological, organizational and commercial changes, due to the relationships between enterprises, public institutions and civil society organizations. These innovation networks create new knowledge and contribute to the dissemination of new socio-economic and technological models, through new production and marketing methods. Innovation Economics, Engineering and Management Handbook 1 is the first of the two volumes that comprise this book. The main objectives across both volumes are to study the innovation processes in todays information and knowledge society; to analyze how links between research and business have intensified; and to discuss the methods by which innovation emerges and is managed by firms, not only from a local perspective but also a global one. The studies presented in these two volumes contribute toward an understanding of the systemic nature of innovations and enable reflection on their potential applications, in order to think about the meaning of growth and prosperity.

In order to survive in their market and differentiate themselves from the competition, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which represent more than 90% of companies worldwide, need to be creative and innovative. This book presents a conceptual framework for thinking about innovation and creativity in SMEs. It takes into account their strategic relation to their environment and the economic, technological and social changes that they face. Their ability to enhance their creativity with new ideas and to legitimize them during their implementation is also taken into account

Equity crowdfunding is a new way for seed stage start-ups to generate initial capital and, as such, raises questions around the choices made by investors within this area. Understanding it is important for investor protection, as investors are generally unaware of the factors that can influence their decisions. However, investing in equity crowdfunding places the investor in a unique decision-making framework, in which resources such as images, videos and storytelling are all mobilized by entrepreneurs and platforms as tools of persuasion. This context thus seems to favor more holistic and emotional decision-making, rather than a process that is rational and analytical. This first volume centers on the emotional and axiological determinants of choice. A transdisciplinary theoretical analysis is carried out, combining different fields within the social sciences, primarily finance, marketing and psychology. This state of the art leads to the emergence of an original theoretical framework for understanding investment choices in equity crowdfunding.