Open Innovation in SMEs: From Closed Boundaries to Networked Paradigm

Abstract

Successful innovation is a key to business growth. In the realm of technological development, innovation processes have been transformed into various forms, like open innovation, crowdsourcing innovation, or collaborative innovation. This research would like to focus on open innovation processes to reach out to the common stakeholders in the entrepreneurship system through small and medium enterprises. It has been observed that to provide innovative services or products to the outer periphery of the customer chain, SMEs play an important role. Hence, focusing innovation for SMEs would lead to a newer dimension of innovation research for better business and economic growth. The research emphasizes on various open innovation strategies for SMEs at the outset by focusing transformation of innovation processes from a closed boundary leading to a networked paradigm, try to provide some overview on a few innovation strategies, and develop a business model. The paper also discusses about some challenges and barriers that SMEs are facing in implementing open innovation strategies. Before conclusion, it put forwards issues of future research.

A review of literature on open innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises

“…In general, SMEs lack both managerial and technical skills for their effectiveness (Rahman and Ramos 2010). They are less active than large firms in open innovation because of their particular characteristics such as organization, culture and strategy.…”

The influence of the entrepreneurial orientation of project manager’s intention to adopt platforms of crowdsourcing innovation

“…A orientação empreendedora (OE) se manifesta em inovações de produtos e processos e é um ingrediente chave para a inovação da empresa. Alguns estudos (Brabham, 2008;Rahman & Ramos, 2010), mostram que plataformas de crowdsourcing têm sido usadas para tornar o processo de inovação mais rápido e menos dispendioso. No contexto da tomada de decisões, o julgamento 16ª Conferência da Associação Portuguesa de Sistemas de Informação (CAPSI'2016) 238 desempenha um papel central, especialmente quando se trata de decisões estratégicas complexas.…”

Perceived Individual Risk of Co-innovation in Collaborative Innovation Networks

“…Risk perceived by actors is one of the key concerns in co-innovation business model implementations [56]. Westergren and Holmström note that managing risks in a co-innovation network is a key task for network coordinators [57].…”