Institutional constraints impede firms’ open innovation. They have been a challenge, obstructing growth and sustainable development. Research on open innovation has shown that the quality of institutions essentially affects innovation in firms. Hence, prior research has made efforts to incorporate the quality of institutions into open innovation analysis. We can use a series of analyses to examine the impact of corruption, the tax system, and other indicators on firm innovation performance. However, developing economies, such as countries in sub-Saharan Africa, represent a specific group of countries that have long been perceived as those mostly deficient in the rule of law, with poor regulatory quality and a great deal of corruption. In these countries, it is also possible to see a lower number of studies, as the inability to obtain quality data to perform empirical analyses can often limit researchers. Nevertheless, employing data from the World Bank’s 2019 Enterprise Survey, this research aimed at exploring the determinants of sustainable open innovation as well as the effect of institutional quality on firms’ capacity utilization and process innovation through a PLS structural equation model analysis. Our research showed interesting findings, such as the fact that the quality of institutions significantly affects firms’ use of OI instruments and capacity utilization. This research also provides for the novelty of the analysis of capacity utilization in an open innovation analysis. The results support the hypotheses that low institutional quality negatively affects firms’ implementation of inbound open innovation instruments, and that there is a strong and positive effect of low institutional quality on firms’ capacity utilization. In addition, we confirm the premise that firms’ implementation of inbound open innovation instruments has a positive and significant influence on firms’ process innovation.

The open innovation concept thrives on knowledge and information flow; their sources for the current innovation performance of the selected Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries have since triggered research interest. This research aimed to explore the different sources of knowledge and information for innovation and the extent to which these different sources contribute to the innovation performance of small and medium-sized enterprises in some selected CEE countries. The study assesses the influence of different knowledge and information sources and their relationships in SMEs engaged in manufacturing activities for innovation performance in the selected CEE countries using structural equation modeling. Data were sourced from the anonymized European Community Innovation Survey (CIS, 2012). The results show that internal sources of information and knowledge from innovative internal activities highly influence SMEs’ innovation performance in these CEE countries. Additionally, SMEs in the selected countries’ sources of information and knowledge influence firm cooperation arrangements. The result is significant for SMEs and policymakers to ensure fostering information and knowledge sharing and support of creating valuable knowledge for innovation, most importantly, in the aftermath of financial and economic crisis. AcknowledgmentThis work was supported by a grant provided by the scientific research project of the Czech Sciences Foundation Grant No. 20-03037S.

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With reference to the existing literature, this paper investigates the heterogenous effect on the attainment of circular economy by government policies in the form of government stringency and government financial support, environmentally related innovations, and human capital. The study was carried out in 26 countries of the OECD from 2010–2019 using the Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood (PPML) model and data from Eurostat and OECD datasets. Indicators for the independent variables were non-market-based stringency, market-based subsidy, gross domestic expenditure on R&D by source of funds, R&D expenditure intramural, national expenditure on environmental protection environmental protection, environmentally related patents with co-inventors, and employees involved in education and training. The results revealed that a significant effect of government stringency in the form of non-market-based stringency, environmental innovation, government financing on R&D, and national expenditure on environmental protection have significant impact on the attainment of circular economy within OECD countries. Surprisingly, there was no significant effect of the market-based subsidy on domestic material consumption (dmc). We conclude that a blend of government policies is the effective means of achieving a circular economy.