Understanding the Specific Characteristics and Determinants of Open Innovation in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Open Innovation (OI) assumes that businesses combine external and internal ideas as the primary means to accelerate internal innovation or access the market to commercialise their technologies. In the last decade, research interest has increased towards understanding OI in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Given the fast pace with which the literature has been developing in this area, there is a strong need to revisit the literature to investigate nuances, ambiguities and differences of opinion. This paper aims to systematically review OI in SMEs and survey the current state of his characteristics and determinants. 130 papers published in peer-reviewed journals are analysed. Findings suggest OI in SME differs considerably from OI in a large business, in terms of characteristics and determinants. The originality of the paper is rooted in the conceptual framework that illustrates how characteristics and determinants of OI in SME relate to each other in terms of input-output.

Organizational Practices’ Role in Managing Open Innovation and Business Performance

“…However, the former study did not test the impact of organizational culture on each type of OI separately. However, the current study findings contradict with the literature of (Fontana et al 2006;Rangus and Drnovšek 2013;Mazur and Zaborek 2016;Szyma ńska 2016;Grimsdottir and Edvardsson 2018;Kim and Ahn 2020;Tchuinou et al 2020). While it confirms the view that organizational culture to be one of the essential challenges for OI adoption.…”

“…Concerning the relationship between managerial ties and OI, the current study results support that SMEs' CEOs and managers have a substantial impact on OI performance in terms of risk perception and views about OI (Tchuinou et al 2020). Moreover, Guo et al (2020) have highlighted that managerial ties allow firms to specify entrepreneurial and cooperation opportunities.…”

“…Nevertheless, it is worth noting that the relationship between the organizational culture and OI practices in SMEs has not been tested before. Previous studies (Lau and Ngo 2004;Tchuinou et al (2020) have focused on either assessing the role of organizational culture in product innovation without specifying the type of innovation-closed or open-or evaluating the impact of SMEs' organizational culture on their degree of innovativeness. Furthermore, Lau and Ngo (2004) confirmed in their study that developmental organizational culture has a direct impact on product or service innovation.…”

“…In addition, a recent study by Tchuinou et al (2020) about the determinants of OI in SMEs concluded that SMEs with an open organizational culture are more capable of adopting OI practices. This conclusion was backed by earlier literature (Fontana et al 2006;Rangus and Drnovšek 2013;Mazur and Zaborek 2016;Szyma ńska 2016;Grimsdottir and Edvardsson 2018;Kim and Ahn 2020).…”

“…The literature includes conflicting results about this relationship. As literature on OI is still limited and scattered and the findings are sometimes contradictory (Tchuinou et al 2020). Furthermore, Sa g et al ( 2016) claim that these conflicting results are due to SMEs' different statuses and systems, which differ between developed and developing countries.…”