Open Innovation in an SME

The concept of open innovation has received widespread attention, from both the practitioner and academic communities (see previous posts in our blog). Large organizations have relied in the adoption of open innovation frameworks to sustain their ability to deliver new products and services to the markets (see Laursen & Salter 2006). Nevertheless, it remains unclear whether smaller organizations (for example SMEs), with limited R&D resources, can get value from opening up their innovation processes to external partners and engage in innovation exchange platforms (Lee et al. 2010).

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The master thesis done at La Salle Innova Institute by Clara Pastor (2010) studies the case of Compact Habit, a building materials Spanish SME, to better understand how the introduction of open innovation processes fostered the transformation of an organization in a turbulent business context. The results of the study suggest that the successful adoption of an open innovation framework is highly dependent on three elements: (1) the involvement of top-level management in the project leadership, (2) the social network linkages of the managers with expert knowledge partners such as research centers and universities; (3) the financial support and advice from regional innovation agents and intermediaries.

We would like to hear about your innovation programs and initiatives, what do you see as key elements for their success?

References:

• Laursen, K. & Salter, A., 2006. Open for innovation: the role of openness in explaining innovation performance among UK manufacturing firms. Strategic Management Journal, 27(2), p.131–150.
• Lee, S. et al., 2010. Open innovation in SMEs—An intermediated network model. Research Policy, 39(2), pp.290-300.
• Pastor, C., 2010. El paradigma de la Innovació Oberta. Master Thesis. La Salle, Ramon Llull University.