Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the role that different external sources of knowledge play in product, process, market and organizational innovations in food SMEs.
Design/methodology/approach - This study is based on a web-survey of 214 food European SMEs. Binary logistic regression models were utilized for data analysis.
Findings - The findings support the recent studies that suggest that the introduction of different types of innovation is associated with different types of source of knowledge. They indicate that collaboration with customers matter for product innovations in food SMEs while collaboration with competitors is more important for organizational innovations in this type of firm. In addition, collaboration with science base actors does not appear relevant to innovation in food SMEs, supporting previous works that highlight the predominant role of market base actors in innovation in this type of firm.
Research limitations/implications - In line with previous research on innovation in SMEs, the generalization of the findings to all European food SMEs may be limited due to the low response rate and the difficulties in collecting innovation data from micro-firms. Data used in the study were gathered from single informants also which may have resulted in self-report bias. Besides, cross-sectional data were employed so no causal inferences could be drawn.
Originality/value - Although the food industry is a major sector for the European economy, little attention has been given to the sources of knowledge that may be used for innovation in this industry. This paper offers interesting insights into the importance of external sources for innovation. Moreover, past research dealing with collaboration for innovation usually focus on product and process innovations. The paper adds to these by incorporating market and organizational innovations
The objective of this paper is to evaluate the importance of selected characteristics of innovation networks in affecting the decision of food SMEs when joining such networks. The paper develops and tests a series of hypotheses through a choice experiment exercise ran on a sample of 231 firms in six EU countries. The results showed that SMEs prefer networks that are composed of manufacturers and supply chain members, where information is shared confidentially among network partners, and when the network provides support to help the firm build its own networks of partners for innovation. In addition, SMEs' choice of the network is also affected by the interaction between specific network attributes and two firm characteristics, i.e. the firm's collaborative experience and innovation objectives. Based on the results, we conclude that the success of inter‐organizational networks depends on the fit between the network's design and the innovation and networking behaviour of the firms.
This paper proposes an approach for measuring innovation in the agrifood sector. First we develop a concept of innovation taking into account its multiform, complex and embedded character. We then we evaluate the validity of the concept by applying it to single firms and value chains in the agrifood sector. This reveals that the concept works well both at firm and value chain levels. This paper provides the basis for future research in the field of innovation measurement at firm and value chain levels, providing also important implications for the further development of the proposed approach. We encourage other scholars to test the applicability of our approach to other sectors.
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