Productivity Trends in The Entrepreneurship Sector

Research Question: The observed research problem is the low productivity growth rate of Serbian entrepreneurs, which requires a forecast of the trend of this indicator in the future to take advantage of business opportunities and improve the innovative potential of entrepreneurs. Improving productivity implies defining a benchmark, herein the entrepreneurial sector of Slovenia as a country that has achieved high productivity values and, according to certain productivity parameters, achieves similar results as Serbia. Motivation: The paper aims to respond to the research gaps: what level of productivity is achieved by the entrepreneurial sector of Serbia and Slovenia, how this value moved over the years, what it will be like in the coming period, and whether appropriate measures of productivity growth of successful countries (Slovenia) can be applied to the development of productivity of Serbian entrepreneurs. Idea: The idea of the paper is to determine possible development potentials of the entrepreneurial sector of Serbia by predicting future trends in productivity as well as to define possible measures that will contribute to higher rates of growth in the productivity of Serbian entrepreneurs using the example of Slovenia. Data: The sample includes the levels of productivity achieved by the entrepreneurial sectors of Serbia and Slovenia for the period from 2010 to 2021. Tools: Data analysis is based on the prediction of future trends in the productivity of entrepreneurs. Findings: The results show that the productivity of Serbian and Slovenian entrepreneurs will increase in the future. Based on the results achieved by Slovenia, Serbia must improve external factors of productivity (institutional framework and tax system) but also internal factors (social capital of employees, business agility, and development of innovations) for productivity to grow at a higher rate. Contribution: The contribution of the paper is reflected in the analysis of indicators of the efficiency of human resources (productivity), which are of crucial importance for achieving high results for entrepreneurs. Also, the study investigates the productivity of entrepreneurs, while in previous studies the subject of analysis was the enterprises in the SME sector. The paper provides a forecast of future trends in productivity and gives recommendations on how to improve productivity following the example of Slovenian entrepreneurs.