SMEs and Open Innovation
There have been a number of studies of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) innovation suggesting that such firms see innovation differently from larger firms and governments. The overarching research question for the proposed study is: what are the sources of innovation for SMEs in the food products manufacturing industry?
Five research objectives have been formulated to address the key dimensions of this research question:
- To investigate the level and nature of innovation activity, its associated discourse and resulting innovation performance within SMEs.
- To identify and map knowledge inflows and outflows associated with innovation activity within SMEs.
- To investigate the capacity of SMEs to access, evaluate, assimilate and exploit new knowledge in order to facilitate and effect innovation activity and performance.
- To explore the influence of local conditions (the business and policy context) on innovation activity and performance within SMEs.
- To identify ‘open innovation accelerators’ which facilitate and enhance knowledge flows and innovation activity within SMEs.
This comparative study is being conducted by researchers from Deakin University In Victoria Australia and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in India.
