Policy involvement and policy consistency identification of supportive policies for SMEs

The practice of supportive policies for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Zhejiang Province during the post-epidemic period is of great importance in boosting economy, creating employment, and promoting innovation for other provinces and overall China. However, quantitative evaluation of supportive policies for SMEs in Zhejiang is under-represented in the existing literature. With application of text bibliometric approach, entropy weight method and Policy Modeling Consistency (PMC) index approach, the research innovatively identifies the policy involvement and policy consistency of 493 supportive policies for SMEs in the absence of sufficient statistical data at multi-hierarchy levels during the period of 2018–2022. First, the Citespace identification shows that the supportive policies for SMEs in Zhejiang has the features of multi-stage outbreaks along with time and bottom-up issuance in levels. Second, the supportive policies have witnessed the dynamic involvement from financial support, cost reduction in business operations, and risk mitigation and employment stabilization since 2019. Third, the policy consistency of the supportive policies among multi departments and multi-hierarchy governments is satisfying since the multiple department policy-making entities have stimulated the cross-responsibility and coordinated supports and realized better supportive effects for SMEs. Fourth, the supportive policies for SMEs in Zhejiang have shifted their focuses towards stimulating long-term innovations of the specialized and sophisticated SMEs. The PMC identification validates the precise governance for stimulating sustainable development in digital economy for SMEs in Zhejiang is of top priority. The policies provide a dynamic optimizing measures and gradually transfer the focuses on sustainable development and technological innovation of SMEs with sensitive recognition of the SMEs’ needs.