Open innovation practices in SMEs and large enterprises

Few studies on open innovation (OI) have addressed OI practices in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and how their use of OI and resulting benefits differ from large enterprises. The lack of resources in SMEs to engage in looking outward is said to be a barrier to OI, but at the same time this shortage is cited as a motive for looking beyond organizational boundaries for technological knowledge. We investigate how OI dimensions have an impact on the innovative performance of SMEs in comparison to large companies. The key finding is that the effects of OI practices in SMEs often differ from those in large firms. SMEs are more effective in using different OI practices simultaneously when they introduce new products on the market whereas this is less the case for large firms. Turnover from new products in SMEs is driven by IP protection mechanisms while large firms in this case benefit more from their search strategies. However, the strengths of these differences between SMEs and large firms.