This study explores innovation capacity in the specific context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Innovation capacity is particularly difficult to define in SMEs because most of their innovative activities are informal and merge into overall firm activities. The objective is to test the central dimensions of innovation capacity to propose insights for assessing the innovation capacity of SMEs. Our nine-dimension framework is built on theoretical insights from the entrepreneurship and innovation literature and is tested through a quantitative survey administered to a first sample of 213 SMEs. Those preliminary research will be completed with a second sample of 320 SMEs. Our preliminary findings discuss the nine critical dimensions of the innovation capacity of SMEs that have been previously emphasized in the literature; six dimensions appear to be significant in our model, whereas three other dimensions are not significant. These findings allow us to propose a new framework for analyzing the innovation capacity of SMEs that is based on SME specificities. We plan a second row of analysis based on the second sample. We would perform a factor analysis to discuss our 9 dimensions emerging from literature and propose a new model of SMEs innovation capacity
