Empowerment of SMEs Through Open Innovation Strategies

Abstract

Adoption of innovation strategies in entrepreneurship is an age old phenomenon, but inclusion of open innovation or collaborative innovation strategies in the business processes is a newly evolved concept. By far, most research reveals that the majority of successful global ventures are adopting open innovation strategies in their business proceedings. However, despite their contribution to entrepreneurship and national economy, the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) are well below the expectation level in terms of acquiring this newly emerged trend of doing business. Moreover, not much research is being conducted to investigate SMEs potencies, expectations, delivery channels and intricacies around the adoption, nourishment and dissemination of open innovation strategies. This research proposes a contextual framework leading to an operational framework to explore the lifecycle of open innovation strategy management activities focusing technology transfer (inbounds or outwards). It discusses a few issues on future research in empowering SMEs through utilization of open innovation strategies.