Exploring the barriers to SMEs’ open innovation adoption in Ghana

Abstract

Purpose Open innovation (OI) is now recognized as one essential innovation paradigm to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) quell their liability of newness and smallness. However, little is known about SMEs’ OI barriers, particularly in emerging economies. Drawing on both network and transaction cost theory, this study aims to explore the barriers to SMEs’ OI adoption in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted an exploratory sequential research design that involved both qualitative and quantitative study methodologies. A total of 644 responses (21 survey interviews and 623 usable questionnaires) across SMEs in Ghana were collected and analyzed in the study. A qualitative analysis involving quotations extracted from the respondent’s statement was used to present the qualitative findings, whereas SEM-partial least square, co-variance approach, was used to analyze the formulated hypotheses. Findings Results show that significant barriers to SMEs OI adoption are collaboration barriers – difficulty in finding the right partners and problems of cooperation and coordination of operational functions; organizational barriers – lack of flexible internal procedures and structures and organizational inertia; and strategic barriers – opportunistic behavior of partners and lack of strategic and resource fit. Contrary to existing findings, financial and knowledge barriers were disclosed as driving factors, rather than barriers, to SMEs’ OI adoption; these findings challenge conventional thinking about SMEs’ major OI barriers. Research limitations/implications This study focuses on only SMEs in one emerging economy, namely, Ghana, which may limit the generalization of the findings. Practical implications The findings of this study, while limited to Ghana, offer useful insights to SMEs managers, development practitioners and policymakers respecting the overall importance of the OI model, its associated impediments, as well as the strategic measures to quell those barriers. Originality/value This study provides a pioneering empirical investigation into the main barriers to SMEs’ OI adoption in a less-explored emerging market context through a mixed research approach.

Does industry matter? Drivers and barriers for open innovation in high-tech and non-high-tech industries—Evidence from Poland

“…Another potential driver for open innovation is reducing the cost of innovation processes [Hagedoorn, 1993;Mohr and Spekman, 1994;Hoffmann and Schlosser, 2001;Gassmann and Enkel, 2004;Chesbrough and Crowther, 2006;Huurinainen et al, 2006;Schmidt, 2007;Loren, 2011;Krapež et al, 2012;Martinez, et al, 2014]. The increased complexity and the inter-sectoral nature of new technologies have made projects more expensive resulting in higher risk for firms undertaking them [Sakakibara, 1997], hence cost as well as risk sharing motives are important for open innovation [Hagedoorn, 1993;Mohr and Spekman, 1994;Hoffmann and Schlosser, 2001;Gassmann, 2006;Schmidt, 2007;Martinez, et al, 2014;Oduro, 2020].…”

“…Open innovation exposes staff to a new knowledge, a technology, and organizational development processes [Linder, 2004;Calantone and Stanko, 2007] and thus improving the research potential of the firm. Studies show that the firms implement open innovation to acquire a new and missing knowledge, a complementary resources and a finance [Hagedoorn, 1993;Mohr and Spekman, 1994;Hoffmann and Schlosser, 2001;EIRMA, 2003;Koruna, 2004;Gassmann, 2006;Schmidt, 2007;Krapež et al, 2012;Fu et al, 2014;Oduro, 2020] and it enables them to utilize the technological convergence and realize the resource synergy effectively [Loren, 2011]. Firms can benefit from open innovation especially when they experience the high cohesion of skills, experiences, facilities and equipment [Krapež et al, 2012].…”

“…In the paper, we break down barriers into internal and external ones (see Table 2). The most important internal barriers for open innovation are related to economic and financial issues [Enkel et al, 2009;van de Vrande et al, 2009;Bigliardi and Galati, 2016;Piwowar-Sulej et al, 2019;Oduro, 2020]. Performing innovation processes openly may by very costly [Galia and Legros, 2004;Knudsen and Mortensen, 2011;D'Este et al, 2012;Teirlinck and Spithoven, 2013;Fu et al, 2014] and firms may lack an internal financial resources [Galia and Legros, 2004;Enkel et al, 2009;D'Este et al, 2012;Galia et al, 2012;Fu et al, 2014;Monteiro et al, 2017].…”

“…The literature on open innovation presents the difficulties addressed by the network theory [Holzmann et al, 2014;Bigliardi and Galati, 2016]. One of the most common barriers is difficulty in finding right partners [Enkel et al, 2009;van de Vrande et al, 2009;Lee et al, 2010;Galia et al, 2012;Holzmann et al, 2014;Fernandez and Svensson, 2017;Oduro, 2020]. Some companies search for partners with complementary resources to have fast access to the new leading knowledge and benefit from learning by networking [Fu et al, 2014].…”

“…Some companies search for partners with complementary resources to have fast access to the new leading knowledge and benefit from learning by networking [Fu et al, 2014]. Thus, barriers may arise due to the insufficient knowledge of partners [van de Vrande et al, 2009] or the lack of resource fit between entities [Oduro, 2020]. Open innovation may be also inhibited due to cultural differences between partners [van de Vrande, et al, 2009;Teirlinck and Spithoven, 2013;Holzmann et al, 2014]; firms with various corporate cultures may not be able to cooperate in innovation together, because they apply different modes of organization, or bureaucratic elements [Leckel et al, 2020;Oduro, 2020].…”