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Les coopérations pour l’innovation des PME : une investigation par méthode mixte du rôle joué par la localisation et le numérique
Abstract
La mise en place de coopérations pour l’innovation constitue un réel enjeu pour les entreprises de taille réduite. S’inscrivant dans le champ de l’innovation ouverte, l’article analyse le rôle joué par la localisation et les ressources numériques des PME sur leur profil de coopération pour l’innovation. Ce profil de coopération combine le type de partenaires, leur diversité, mais aussi l’échelle géographique des partenariats. Nous mobilisons une double source de données. Une enquête quantitative nous permet de relier les profils de coopération à la localisation et aux ressources numériques d’un échantillon de 269 PME ; une enquête qualitative menée auprès de 7 PME représentatives des profils identifiés illustre et complète les résultats mis en évidence par l’analyse quantitative. Nous montrons que les profils de coopération pour l’innovation des PME sont plus fortement marqués par leurs pratiques numériques que par leur localisation.
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For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), innovation co-operation represents a promising avenue to get around limitations and increase their innovation capacity. But under which conditions are firms more susceptible to engage in such ventures? The purpose of this research paper is to further our understanding of the factors contributing to innovation co-operation for manufacturing SMEs from the firm’s perspective. Following an online and telephone survey with SME managers (n=273), we studied the presence or absence of innovation co-operation. We subsequently investigated the intensity of innovation co-operation with market partners (clients, competitors, consultants, and suppliers) and research partners (laboratories, post-secondary education institutions, technology transfer centers, and universities), addressing gaps in a literature dominated by binary analysis. Our empirical analyses suggest that innovation co-operation is promoted by several key determinants. However, it highlights there are many important differences in the determinants of propensity vs. intensity of innovation co-operation.
Open innovation implies that geographical proximity is irrelevant. However, we posit that any potential innovation outcome depends on the spatial constraints on openness. In this paper, we add a geographical proximity dimension to open innovation by analysing how a domestic and international open innovation approach affects innovation outcomes. In particular, we hypothesise that domestic open innovation has positive effects on new-to-the-firm product innovation, due to easily accessible resources. We further posit that, through international open innovation, SMEs can access new and advanced knowledge which is not available locally, leading to more novel innovations. However, we expect that the relationship between openness, both domestic and international, and innovation is conditional on R&D activities. Our empirical analysis based on the Cyprus Community Innovation Survey supports these hypotheses. Our results underline the critical role of the spatial aspect on open innovation in SMEs, something which has remained surprisingly absent from the literature.
Open innovation is now a widely used concept in academia, business, and policy making. This article describes the state of open innovation at the intersection of research, practice, and policy. It discusses some key trends (e.g., digital transformation), challenges (e.g., uncertainty), and potential solutions (e.g., EU funding programs) in the context of open innovation and innovation policy. With this background, the authors introduce select papers published in this Special Section of California Management Review that were originally presented at the second annual World Open Innovation Conference, held in Santa Clara, California, in December of 2015.
This paper explores small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) proximity preferences when selecting partners for collaborative process innovation. Drawing on a survey of 362 Danish SMEs, we address four partner proximity characteristics: geographic, cognitive, organizational, and social. The results show that SMEs prioritize geographic openness over regional clustering. Furthermore, to simultaneously facilitate collaboration and ensure innovation, firms tend to collaborate with partners that are characterized by cognitive similarity at a technological level and knowledge distance at a market level. Technological proximity is also found to be more relevant than social proximity when it comes to bridging the potential geographic and market distance between the collaborative partners. Finally, the results indicate that the tendency of organizational proximity to facilitate informal interactions with partners enhances process innovation only at two of four process innovation levels. Thus, the results highlight the fact that the value of partner proximity characteristics change with the level of process innovation considered.
Cet article étudie le rôle du numérique et du territoire dans la capacité d’innovation des entreprises. Plus précisément, nous nous interrogeons sur les déterminants de la capacité d’innovation des PME, en mettant un accent particulier sur la localisation des firmes et leur aptitude à mobiliser des outils numériques. L’étude empirique porte sur la capacité d’innovation d’un échantillon représentatif de 1 253 PME, complété par des données de localisation issues du zonage en aires urbaines. Nos données nous permettent de montrer que la capacité d’innovation de la PME dépend moins de sa localisation que de ses caractéristiques propres, notamment son caractère multisites et sa capacité à mobiliser les TIC. Nous testons ensuite l’hypothèse d’un effet différencié de l’utilisation des ressources numériques sur la capacité d’innovation en fonction de la localisation de la firme. Les résultats des modèles ne nous permettent pas de valider cette dernière hypothèse.
It has often been argued that "there is something in the air" which makes firms in high-density environments-such as cities or clusters-more innovative. The co-location of firms facilitates the emergence of serendipity and casual encounters which promote innovation in firms. We assess this hypothesis using data from a survey of Norwegian firms engaged in innovation partnerships. The results indicate that there may be "much less in the air" than is generally assumed in the literature. The relationships conducive to innovation by Norwegian firms emerged as a consequence of purpose-built searches and had little to do with chance, serendipity, or "being there."
The collaboration for developing research and development (R&D) projects highlights the importance to access new external knowledge. Drawing from a mixed-methods approach in a sample of projects carried out by Spanish firms, our key findings show that every project’s dimension of absorptive capacity is related to collaborative performance in different ways. Organisations with capability difficulties to transform external knowledge enhanced their R&D projects’ outcomes by collaborating more intensively. However, it is the ability to exploit that external knowledge into innovation which could be the key to obtain outcomes and support to R&D programs. The regional particularities have showed new ways to collaborate due to the innovation culture in the Middle Ebro Valley.
Geographic research on firm-level innovation is generally premised on the idea of open innovation, suggesting that innovation occurs more readily in urban settings or clusters, which generate local buzz and allow access to external actors. However, a growing body of evidence demonstrates that firms also introduce first-to-market innovations in remote locations. In this exploratory paper, building upon work by Philip McCann, we outline a conceptual framework that connects innovators (differentiated by information source and frequency of interaction with interlocutors) and location (distance from a metropolitan area): slow innovators, relying on non-market-sourced information and infrequent contacts, will be overrepresented in isolated locations. Fast innovators, relying on market-sourced information and frequent interactions, will locate closer to cities. Our results confirm this. Our interpretation of these results – slow innovators are more reliant on technological information which loses value more slowly than faster decaying market-oriented information – requires further investigation.
This paper explores the patterns of innovation and collaboration by using unique regional survey data on more than 600 Swedish firms. The data also include the smallest firms, which have been largely neglected in the existing literature on innovations. In the context of collaboration, however, small firms are of particular interest because external interactions and joint projects can be expected to play a very central role in innovation processes in firms where internal resources are very limited. The results show that the probability of innovation is higher among collaborating firms, yet not all types of collaborations matter. Extra-regional collaborations appear as most important in promoting firm innovation, and collaboration seems to be most favourable when the partners involved have some organizational or knowledge relatedness. Small firms, in particular, seem to gain from such extra-regional linkages.
New product development (NPD) is a path not a destination; a path that organisations, more than ever, should follow to survive in the present unpredictable and dynamic market. Prospector organisations, especially those whom are leaders in their own industrial sector, implement some factors to improve new product success rate. In this regard, by applying a sequential mixed method approach, 13 key factors are identified and categorised into managerial, structural and organisational, process and environmental factors. Through identifying, analysing and verifying importance of these factors, this research aims to bridge the gap between theoretical studies and practical subjects of NPD.
Si les relations entre la recherche publique et l’industrie s’établissent « naturellement » avec les grandes entreprises, il en va différemment avec les petites entreprises à faible densité de recherche. Comprendre comment les organismes de recherche publics peuvent améliorer la diffusion des connaissances vers les PME constitue le principal objectif de cet article.
Notre analyse montre que deux modes distincts de production/diffusion des connaissances vers l’industrie coexistent. Le premier, basé sur la coproduction de la demande et des connaissances, se caractérise par la simultanéité du processus de production et de diffusion. Le second, basé sur l’exploration collective et la standardisation de la demande et des connaissances, dissocie la phase de production et de diffusion dans le temps mais développe une stratégie d’organisation permettant une totale connexion des deux phases. Alors que le premier mode fonctionne de manière plutôt satisfaisante pour le transfert de connaissances vers les grandes entreprises ou les PME high-tech, le second semble plus adapté aux coopérations entre la recherche publique et les PME faiblement intensives en recherche. Cet article met en perspective ces deux modèles à travers deux études de cas et en dégage quelques enseignements en termes de management des relations public/privé.
The days of vertical integration are over. Product development, manufacturing, and other activities once done by single firms are now fields of collaboration. This raises questions about the spatial aspects of interfirm collaboration. Firms have partners in their direct environment, at a distance, or in-between, which means that traditional views on regional economic development do no longer apply. It also means that a local-global dichotomy does not adequately describe today's economic landscape. This paper distinguishes four spatial scales – local, regional, national, international – and explores the distribution of interfirm collaboration across them, while taking project development over time into account.
Cette recherche vise à caractériser les interactions entre partenaires dans le cadre de projets collaboratifs pour l'innovation. Les données mobilisées proviennent d'une enquête en ligne adressée à l'ensemble des partenaires impliqués dans des projets labellisés par un pôle de compétitivité français. Les acteurs ont évalué la fréquence de leurs interactions en face-à-face et à distance avec chacun des autres partenaires impliqués dans le même projet. À partir des 754 liens inter-organisationnels étudiés, on observe une hétérogénéité des interactions en termes d'existence et de fréquence. Si le rôle des coordinateurs des projets et de la connaissance antérieure des partenaires stimule les interactions, nous montrons que la proximité géographique entre les acteurs influence la nature de ces dernières. Enfin, l'analyse croisée des deux types d'interactions met en évidence l'existence à la fois de configurations de complémentarité et de substituabilité, cette dernière n'étant possible que s'il existe un minimum d'interactions en face-à-face.
L’analyse des relations de proximité s’est souvent tournée vers les questions de relations industrielles et d’innovation, en introduisant des raffinements successifs, qui tournent autour des notions fondamentales de Proximité Géographique et de Proximité Organisée. L’objectif de ce papier est d’analyser et de caractériser la diversité des relations de proximité entretenues par les entreprises innovantes au sein d’un cluster, puis d’en donner une lecture à partir d’un exemple appliqué. Nous commençons par mettre en évidence les principales caractéristiques des relations de Proximité Organisée et de Proximité Géographique (dans ses composantes permanentes et temporaires) et dessiner ainsi le schéma des différentes catégories de relations proches et à distance entretenues par les entreprises d’un cluster, en particulier en termes de collaborations de recherche et de développement. Nous appliquons ensuite cette grille de lecture au cas des entreprises du cluster de l’optique en Région Ile de France, en appliquant la méthode d’analyse portérienne des groupes stratégiques. Les résultats révèlent l’existence de quatre groupes différents d’entreprises innovantes, qui entretiennent des relations spécifiques à l’espace et mobilisent de manière différente les relations locales, les échanges à distance via la mobilité ou les TICs. En particulier, les schémas de mobilisation des proximités s’avèrent différents en fonction de la taille des entreprises, de leur place dans la chaine de valeur, de leur degré de spécialisation et de la maturité de la technologie.
This research note proposes an overview of the use of mixed methods in the Francophone research in management. A literature review of three media (AIMS, M@n@gement, International Management) was performed. The analysis of 2341 articles allows to conclude that the use of mixed methods is limited. The major contribution of this article is to show that mixed methods can enrich the research design either upstream (enrichment of research questions) or downstream (enrichment of findings) or on both levels. This research note will allow researchers who are unfamiliar with the use of mixed methods to understand their interests and possible uses.
Cette note de recherche analyse l’utilisation des méthodes mixtes dans la recherche francophone en management. Une étude bibliographique de trois supports (AIMS, M@n@gement, Management International) a été réalisée. L’analyse des 2341 articles permet de conclure que le recours aux méthodes mixtes demeure limité. La contribution majeure de cet article est de montrer que les méthodes mixtes permettent d’enrichir le design de recherche soit en amont (enrichissement du questionnement) soit en aval (enrichissement des résultats) soit aux deux niveaux (amont et aval). Cette note de recherche permettra également aux chercheurs de comprendre l’intérêt et les possibles opérationnalisations des méthodes mixtes.
Our era is one of increasingly pervasive digital technologies, which penetrate deeply into the very core of the products, services, and operations of many organizations and radically change the nature of product and service innovations. The fundamental properties of digital technology are reprogrammability and data homogenization. Together, they provide an environment of open and flexible affordances that are used in creating innovations characterized by convergence and generativity. An analysis of convergence and generativity observed in innovations with pervasive digital technologies reveals three traits: (1) the importance of digital technology platforms, (2) the emergence of distributed innovations, and (3) the prevalence of combinatorial innovation. Each of the six articles in this special issue relates to one or more of these three traits. In this essay, we explore the organizational research implications of these three digital innovation traits and identify research opportunities for organization science scholars. Examples from the articles in this special issue on organizing for innovation in the digitized world are used to demonstrate the kind of organizational scholarship that can faithfully reflect and inform innovation in a world of pervasive digital technologies.
Open innovation (OI) denotes a company's ability to draw on a range of external sources to meet their needs for innovation. Very few empirical analyses have been conducted on the extent to which this new paradigm is embedded in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Thus, the present study's objective is to identify and characterize different profiles of OI in SMEs, considering the openness of the innovation process phases, variety and breadth of collaborations, determinants, barriers, and motivations. A survey was carried out among Italian SME manufacturing firms, and a database of 105 companies was obtained. With regard to data elaboration, a factorial and cluster analysis was conducted, and three different OI profiles emerged: selective low open, unselective open upstream, and mid-partners integrated open. The different behaviors of the three clusters in terms of determinants, performance, contextual factors, barriers, and motivations were analyzed and discussed.
This article reports a multi-method study of product innovation processes in small manufacturing firms. Prior studies found that small firms do not deploy the formalized processes identified as best practice for the management of new product development (NPD) in large firms. To explicate small firms’ product innovation, this study uses effectuation theory, which emerged from entrepreneurship research. Effectuation theory discerns two logics of decision making: causation, assuming that means are selected to attain goals; and effectuation, assuming that goals are created based upon available means. The study used a process research approach, investigating product innovation trajectories in five small firms across 352 total events. Quantitative analyses revealed early effectuation logic, which increasingly turned towards causation logic over time. Further qualitative analyses confirmed the use of both logics, with effectual logic rendering product innovation resource-driven, stepwise, and open-ended, and with causal logic used especially in later stages to set objectives and to plan activities and invest resources to attain objectives. Because the application of effectuation logic differentiates the small firm approaches from mainstream NPD best practices, this study examined how small firms’ product innovation processes deployed effectuation logic in further detail. The small firms: (1) made creative use of existing resources; (2) scoped innovations to be realizable with available resources; (3) used external resources whenever and wherever these became available; (4) prioritized existing business over product innovation projects; (5) used loose project planning; (6) worked in steps towards tangible outcomes; (7) iterated the generation, selection, and modification of goals and ideas; and (8) relied on their own customer knowledge and market probing, rather than early market research. Using effectuation theory thus helps to understand how small firm product innovation both resembles and differs from NPD best practices observed in larger firms. Because the combination of effectual and causal principles leverages small firm characteristics and resources, this article concludes that product innovation research should more explicitly differentiate between firms of different sizes, rather than prescribing large firm best practices to small firms.
In the current global economic landscape, it is virtually impossible for any
single firm to stay abreast of all relevant technological advances. Thus
integration in global innovation networks is becoming more and more
important for competitiveness and growth. However, the fact that
international collaboration is organizationally demanding raises important
questions concerning the relative importance of international collaboration
and intramural R&D for innovation performance, and how they interact in
determining it. These questions are particularly relevant in the context of
SMEs due to the narrower internal knowledge bases of smaller
organizations. In the following they are investigated using Norwegian
innovation survey data and quantile regression. Firms in the upper quantile
of the innovation performance distribution face a trade-off between engaging
in global innovation collaboration and engaging in systematic R&D, where
both individually have a positive effect. This is consistent with baseline OLS
findings. By contrast, firms in the lower quantiles of the distribution are
found to strengthen their performance by means of R&D only.
Consequently, the baseline OLS regression results fail to capture the
determinants of innovation performance for the population of SMEs that
are not already strong innovation performers. This leads to a risk of excessive
SME innovation policy emphasis on inducing international collaboration.
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Knowledge intensive business services firms can play a key role in modern economies by linking localized collaboration networks to global knowledge flows, and by actively serving in support of knowledge diffusion across institutional and sectoral divides. The extent to which they do is dependent on the markets, partners and human resources available locally. This paper uses the unique establishment-level innovation data available in Norway to investigate whether location in urban labour market regions influences the geographical scope of collaborative linkages maintained within and outside the realm of clients. It proceeds to consider whether the diversity of partner types used locally, domestically and abroad differ between locations.
L'objet de cet article est de montrer le rôle central que la proximité exerce1 dans la gestion des entreprises de faible dimension (petites et toutes petites entreprises) en s'appuyant sur la loi proxémique de Abraham Moles et Elisabeth Rohmer, fournissant un cadre d'analyse particulièrement fécond pour comprendre le fonctionnement typique des entreprises de taille réduite. La thèse centrale défendue par l'auteur est que la proximité est un mécanisme de hiérarchisation qui crée les conditions nécessaires à l'action et à la réflexion dans une organisation centralisée, faiblement spécialisée, dotée de systèmes d'information interne et externe simples et privilégiant des stratégies intuitives et peu formalisées. Cet article s'inscrit résolument dans la perspective d'une gestion spécifique des entreprises de petite taille obéissant à un principe de proximité.
This article develops a framework to examine the determinants for the choice of partners among firms that cooperate in R&D. This framework is used to predict the relative efficiency of cooperation with different types of partners in innovation. We employed the resource-based perspective to shed light on who firms cooperate with. The empirical work is based on the Spanish CIS-2 survey conducted in 1997 by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). The sample of 1652 Spanish firms gives a reliable image of the behaviour of manufacturing firms as regards cooperation in innovation. Our results have revealed several distinctions between vertical and horizontal cooperation, and the role of public institutions as partners in R&D cooperation. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that the objectives of cooperation with national or European Union (EU) partners is different, from a strategic point of view, than cooperation with US firms in terms of efficiency, that is, the expected results of R&D cooperation are based on the type of partner in the agreement. These findings and their implications are discussed.
This study investigates differences in the diversity of cooperation partners used for innovation‐related activities (i.e., search breadth) between family and nonfamily small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as within the group of family SMEs. The results generally confirm our hypotheses derived from the behavioral theory of the firm. Specifically, we show that family SMEs have a lower search breadth than their nonfamily counterparts. Our findings further illustrate how attributes of the CEO (level of education) and the top management team (nonfamily management involvement and educational background diversity) relate to the search breadth of family SMEs.
This paper tests whether more frequent interaction at different spatial levels has a positive effect on the innovation performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the South-West and South-East of Ireland. Based on an original survey, it finds that more frequent interaction generally increases innovation likelihood, but at a diminishing rate, thus suggesting a trade-off between resources dedicated to transforming knowledge into new products and processes. Spatially distant interaction is found to be at least as valuable as proximate interaction, which questions the received wisdom that the best sources of knowledge are regional. Given the value of distant interaction, the results indicate that regional lock-in may be an obstacle to superior innovation performance of SMEs.
Open innovation has so far been studied mainly in high-tech, multinational enterprises. This exploratory paper investigates if open innovation practices are also applied by small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Drawing on a database collected from 605 innovative SMEs in the Netherlands, we explore the incidence of and apparent trend towards open innovation. The survey furthermore focuses on the motives and perceived challenges when SMEs adopt open innovation practices. Within the survey, open innovation is measured with eight innovation practices reflecting technology exploration and exploitation in SMEs. We find that the responding SMEs engage in many open innovation practices and have increasingly adopted such practices during the past 7 years. In addition, we find no major differences between manufacturing and services industries, but medium-sized firms are on average more heavily involved in open innovation than their smaller counterparts. We furthermore find that SMEs pursue open innovation primarily for market-related motives such as meeting customer demands, or keeping up with competitors. Their most important challenges relate to organizational and cultural issues as a consequence of dealing with increased external contacts.
Cet article fait la synthèse d’un ensemble de travaux empiriques réalisés auprès des petites et moyennes entreprises ( Pme ) sur la question du lien entre proximité, coopération, innovation et localisation. Sur la période 2006-2015, quatre enquêtes ont été menées auprès de cette population, complétées par des données de localisation de l’ Insee et par la réalisation d’une dizaine d’entretiens semi-directifs auprès de dirigeants de Pme . Nos résultats montrent que la capacité d’innovation des Pme n’est pas plus importante dans les grands centres urbains que dans les espaces ruraux. Ils contribuent, de plus, à expliciter ce résultat. D’une part, en révélant que la coopération n’est pas une condition nécessaire à l’innovation. D’autre part, en relativisant le rôle de la proximité géographique et des formes de proximité non géographique dans les relations interentreprises : premièrement, la proximité géographique n’appelle pas systématiquement l’interaction, et deuxièmement, elle ne contribue pas toujours à la faciliter. Enfin, en mettant en évidence la pluralité des échelles géographiques de coopération des Pme , et ce, quelle que soit leur localisation.
Digital transformation has undoubtedly become a key enabler of innovation as evidenced by the numerous firms that use digital technologies to manage their innovation processes. This issue is even more relevant today when innovation processes have become more open and require greater resources in the different implementation phases to capture and transfer knowledge within and outside the firm's boundaries. This implies additional challenges in managing the increasing amount of knowledge and information flows. Accordingly, digital technologies can be used and implemented to manage open innovation processes through easier access and sharing the knowledge created and transferred. Nevertheless, literature in these fields does not provide a structured view of how and why digital technologies are used to manage innovation processes in an open perspective. This paper aims to bridge this gap by adopting the theoretical lenses of change management to identify the managerial actions at organizational and process level that companies perform to implement digital technologies in their open innovation processes. Accordingly, the paper investigates how and why these managerial actions required for and enabled by digital technologies help firms to develop and nurture open innovation. From an empirical point of view, the exploratory multiple case study analyzes nine firms operating in different industries and varying in size, market share, and organizational structure.
The original Uppsala model that was published in 1977 explains the internationalization process of firms. We have further developed the model several times in the intervening years. The present article is our latest effort: a general model of the evolution of the multinational business enterprise (MBE), from early steps abroad to being a global firm. The updated, augmented model explains MBE evolution in general, not only characteristics of the internationalization process in a narrow sense. We believe that the newest iteration, anchored in process ontology, will be useful in conducting longitudinal empirical studies.
The city as innovation machine. Regional Studies. This paper puts cities and urban regions at the very centre of the processes of innovation and entrepreneurship. It combines the insights of Jane Jacobs and recent urban research on the role of the city with the literature on innovation and entrepreneurship going back to Joseph Schumpeter. Innovation and entrepreneurship and their geography privileges the firm, industry clusters and/or the individual and poses the city as a container for them. By marrying Jacobs’ insights on cities to those of Schumpeter on innovation, it is argued that innovation and entrepreneurship do not simply take in place in cities but in fact require them.
Prior research highlights the vital role of information technology (IT) for innovation in firms. In this paper, we draw on the knowledge-based view of the firm to investigate how search in external knowledge sources and information technology for knowledge absorption jointly influence process innovation performance. Our model is tested on a nine-year panel (2003–2011) of Swiss firms from a wide range of manufacturing industries. Using instrumental variables, and disaggregating by type of IT, we find that data access systems and network connectivity hold very different potential for the effective absorption of external knowledge, and the subsequent realized economic gains from process innovation. Against the backdrop of today’s digital transformation, our findings demonstrate how firms should coordinate strategies for sourcing external knowledge with specific IT investments in order to improve their innovation performance.
Plusieurs entreprises mettent en place des entites dediees a favoriser l’innovation de rupture. En nous appuyant sur l’analyse de huit entites [1] , nous identifions quatre types d’activites qui y sont menees et montrons comment certains outils numeriques favorisent leur execution. Il y a trois types d’outils : ceux qui font le lien avec l’environnement de l’entreprise pour s’approvisionner en idees et connaissances, ceux qui permettent d’identifier et developper les comportements intrapreneurs et ceux favorisant l’experimentation. Tous concilient la divergence creative de l’exploration avec la maitrise des couts et des delais et favorisent la coexistence de differentes formes d’ambidextrie organisationnelles.
This paper analyses how the formation of collaboration networks affects firm-level innovation by applying the ‘Goldilocks principle’. The ‘Goldilocks principle’ of optimal distance in innovation networks postulates that the best firm-level innovation results are achieved when the partners involved in the network are located at the ‘right’ distance, i.e. ‘not too close and not too far’ fromone another, across non-geographical proximity dimensions. This principle is tested on a survey of 542 Norwegian firms conducted in 2013, containing information about firm-level innovation activities and key innovation partners. The results of the ordinal logit regression analysis substantiate the Goldilocks principle, as the most innovative firms are found amongst those that collaborate with partners at medium levels of proximity for all non-geographical dimensions. The analysis also underscores the importance of the presence of a substitution-innovation mechanism, with geographical distance problems being compensated by proximity in other dimensions as a driver of innovation, whilst there is no support for a potential overlap-innovation mechanism.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the extant literature on open innovation (OI) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Design/methodology/approach
– An examination of the literature was undertaken to review the studies on open innovation in SMEs. The selected articles were classified in different themes and analyzed accordingly.
Findings
– The study finds that adopting OI by SMEs improves their overall innovation performance. The authors found that a larger number of studies are based on a quantitative approach. Surprisingly, unlike in many other disciplines, scholars of North America have had a limited contribution. European scholars, along with some scholars from Korea and China, have been active in developing this field of OI in SMEs.
Research limitations/implications
– This study provides theoretical and managerial implications. With thematic analysis, along with identifying gaps, conflations, and contradictions in the literature, this study proposes an agenda for future exploration.
Originality/value
– The value of this study lies in the integration of the limited but scattered studies on OI in SMEs.
Analysis of proximity relations has often focused on the areas of industrial relations and innovation, introducing successive refinements centred on the seminal concepts of geographical and organised proximity. The aim of this article is to analyse and to assess for the diversity of proximity relations maintained by various types of innovative firms within a cluster, and to illustrate it with a case study analysis. We start with a presentation of the main characteristics of proximity relations: organised proximity and (permanent or temporary) geographical proximity, and define on that basis an analytical grid of the various relations maintained by the firms located in a cluster, be there local or distant ones. Then, we applied this analysis to an applied example, the one of the optics cluster in the greater Paris region. In order to identify groups of firms we apply the Porterian analysis method to strategic groups. The results reveal the existence of four different groups of innovative firms that maintain specific spatial relations and mobilize local relations and long-distance exchanges in different ways, via mobility or ICT. We show that the mobilization patterns of the different proximity types vary depending on the size of the firms, their place within the value chain, their degree of specialization and the maturity of the technology used.
What is the propensity of firms to collaborate for innovation and the geography of cooperation? An analysis of French Agrofood companies during the period 2006-2008
Since KLINE & ROSENBERG and their seminal work in 1986, scholars define innovation as an interactive process and consider that geographical proximity fosters interactions inside this process. We have used data from the European Innovation survey (CIS 8 - COMMUNITY INNOVATION SURVEY, 2006-2008) to analyse the propensity of agrofood firms to collaborate when they develop product or process innovations. We have analysed the geographical scale of such collaboration.
Our results suggest that these firms are collaborating intensively for process innovation and weakly for product innovations. The analysis also show that the innovation networks developed are local only for a minority of firms, and that most of them collaborate at a more national scale. The main factors influencing the geographical scale of the developed collaborations seem to be the R & D competences and the fact that the firms is a subsidiary of a bigger group.
Firms’ innovativeness and their ICT resources are seen as two factors of firms’ competitiveness. Our research tests these sources of performance in the context of small-and-medium enterprises (SMEs) and examines possible synergies with ICTs supporting innovation. Our research is based on a double empirical investigation : a survey is conducted among firms in the region of Brittany (France), complemented with an online investigation of their financial performance. With a final sample of 1086 firms, we perform an econometric assessment of SMEs performance, explained by their innovativeness, their ICT resources (skills and assets) and the combined effect of their innovativeness supported by ICTs. The interaction variable capturing the combined effect constitutes the major methodological originality of our research. Our investigation shows that ICTs contribute to performance improvement when supporting innovations : SMEs’ innovativeness positively influences performance when it is accompanied by specific investments in ICTs or by more intensive use of existing ICTs in the firm. However, innovativeness and the level of ICT resources have a direct negative effect on SMEs’ financial performance. We discuss these results in the specific SMEs organizational context.
The determinants of face to face frequency in inter-firm relationships: an empirical analysis
This paper seeks to identify the influence of ICT, the nature of knowledge and spatial and non-spatial proximities between the parties on the frequency of face to face interactions in customer-provider relationships. Data come from a 2008 survey of 2000 representative SMEs located in the Brittany Region. The results are not clear about the role of the nature of knowledge, but highlight the importance of the spatial distance between the partners and of ICT which both reduce physical encounters and of several forms of non spatial proximities: if confidence reduces the need for face to face encounters, when partners know each other from a long time they physically meet more frequently. These results underline the social nature of inter-firms relationship and its influence on the need for face to face.
Spatial proximity is credited with numerous virtues in the economic literature. In particular, for a company to be located near other companies is seen as conducive to the development of business relations. Spatial proximity is also considered to contribute to the quality and efficiency of these relations by facilitating face-to-face meetings that foster the exchange of complex knowledge and, in particular, the emergence of innovation. This article explores the notion of spatial proximity in intercompany relations, its capacity to facilitate exchange, as well as the link with the methods of communication employed (information and communication technologies and face-to-face). It is based on a distinction between real proximity (the spatial distance between firms), perceived proximity (the spatial distance as evaluated by the firm itself) and active proximity (spatial proximity that facilitates the exchanges). The data come from a survey conducted in 2008 with more than 2000 firms located in the Brittany region (France). The findings emphasize the relative nature of the notion of spatial proximity and the distinction in some cases between real and active proximities, and show that the positive perception of the role of spatial proximity is sustained by the increased face-to-face contact it entails.
There is a consensus in economic geography concerning the positive influence of agglomeration economies on innovation. Usually this is captured through the type of area in which a firm's head office (HO) of the firm is located. But the location of the firm's other units could also have an impact on innovation. This article proposes to construct different spatial profiles of firms, based on the location of their HOs and other units in three distinct types of areas, defined according to their degree of agglomeration. The influence of these firms' spatial profiles on their propensity to innovate and innovation intensity is estimated, controlling for other determinants related to structural characteristics, the firms' relations with outsiders and with their competitive environment. This study uses a sample representative of the French manufacturing firms for the year 2006. The econometric results show various effects of multi-location on firms' innovation and highlight the importance of the units in the overall technological dynamic of firms.
Qualitative research in economics has traditionally been unimportant compared to quantitative work. Yet there has been a small explosion in use of quantitative approaches in the past 10–15 years, including ‘mixed-methods’ projects which use qualitative and quantitative methods in combination. This paper surveys the growing use of qualitative methods in economics and closely related fields, aiming to provide economists with a useful roadmap through major sets of qualitative methods and how and why they are used. We review the growing body of economic research using qualitative approaches, emphasizing the gains from using qualitative- or mixed-methods over traditional ‘closed-ended’ approaches. It is argued that, although qualitative methods are often portrayed as less reliable, less accurate, less powerful and/or less credible than quantitative methods, in fact, the two sets of methods have their own strengths, and how much can be learned from one type of method or the other depends on specific issues that arise in studying the topic of interest. The central message of the paper is that well-done qualitative work can provide scientifically valuable and intellectually helpful ways of adding to the stock of economic knowledge, especially when applied to research questions for which they are well suited.
There is a continuous commitment of policymakers in the UK to support innovation in small and medium-sized firms. For these policy initiatives to be successful, an understanding of the factors driving innovation activities is required. In this study, the focus is upon the role that information and communication technologies (ICT) play in the innovation performance of UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Using data drawn from the 2004 Annual Small Business Survey (ASBS) database, it is shown that ICT operate primarily as efficiency-enhancing technologies, although specific market-oriented applications (that is, website development) exhibit the potential to create competitive advantage through product innovation.
Innovations are rarely generated in complete isolation. Due to inherent uncertainty, high knowledge requirements, and high financial investments, many firms search for external partners to develop new products and processes. However, there is an ongoing debate as to whether firms who cooperate with diverse external partners such as suppliers, customers and governmental research institutions see increased innovation performance as compared to firms who cooperate with a less diverse range of collaborators. This paper investigates how diversity in cooperation networks affects firms' innovation performance output as measured by sales share of innovative products. To address this question, the authors analyze a large-scale sample of microdata from Swiss firms from four waves (1999, 2002, 2005, and 2008) of the Swiss innovation survey using panel data analysis. The findings suggest that firms with greater diversity in their cooperation network benefit by generating new product innovations, and that small firms benefit more from diversity of collaborators as compared to other firm sizes. The study further detects a curvilinear relationship between diversity of collaborator types and innovation performance, and emphasizes the importance of appropriate HRM and knowledge management policies and practices to provide firms with an effective mechanism for maximizing benefits from a diversified cooperation network.
We gather detailed data on organizational practices and information technology (IT) use at 253 firms to examine the hypothesis that external focus—the ability of a firm to detect and therefore respond to changes in its external operating environment—increases returns to IT, especially when combined with decentralized decision making. First, using survey-based measures, we find that external focus is correlated with both organizational decentralization, and IT investment. Second, we find that a cluster of practices including external focus, decentralization, and IT is associated with improved product innovation capabilities. Third, we develop and test a three-way complementarities model that indicates that the combination of external focus, decentralization, and IT is associated with significantly higher productivity in our sample. We also introduce a new set of instrumental variables representing barriers to IT-related organizational change and find that our results are robust when we account for the potential endogeneity of organizational investments. Our results may help explain why firms that operate in information-rich environments such as high-technology clusters or areas with high worker mobility have experienced especially high returns to IT investment and suggest a set of practices that some managers may be able to use to increase their returns from IT investments.
This paper was accepted by Sandra Slaughter, information systems.
In the literature there is a controversy about the relevance of the spatial dimension in innovation collaboration. We examine the link between the spatial composition of group members and group characteristics which are important for performing innovation projects. To this end, we introduce a social-psychological approach to the field of economic geography. The empirical part is a longitudinal study of 49 inter-organisational innovation groups in Germany. We find that the share of regional partners is rather stable after a funded formation stage. Hence, policy measures aiming at inter-regional collaboration have to be employed at an early stage of group development.
The assumption that geographic proximity between innovating partners is of great importance is widely unquestioned and it has been documented by studies of high-tech areas in advanced countries. Until now, the pattern of cooperation among firms in low- and medium-tech industry in more peripheral locations has not been a subject of study to the same degree. This article sets out to question the rationales behind the territorial innovation theories, and, in particular, their views on the role of the region in the era of globalization. It is found that the regional focus is less fruitful when it comes to explaining the innovation pattern of individual firms today. Notions of proximity are particularly suited for identifying the spatial variety of inter-firm relations, in combination with notions of firm capabilities. Against this background, the article detects the pattern and role of knowledge sourcing of low- and medium-tech firms in a peripheral context of Poland. It sheds light on the capability of firms to source useful knowledge for innovation, and particularly, on the geography of their knowledge sourcing. The analysis shows that the firms are capable of sourcing knowledge in a flexible and complex way, and that a division of labour exists between regional, global and national knowledge sources. Global sources are seen as the most important sources of innovation, while the regional level basically provides a labour market and entrepreneurship. Thus, the research of this article does not support ideas of clustering or local buzz or of perceiving the region as mediator. On the contrary, the research suggests that knowledge sourcing for innovation is global. The theoretical part of the paper is rooted in a critical assessment of the ongoing debate on “proximity”. (A more detailed assessment can be found in a paper by the author presented at the ESF exploratory workshop on “The governance of networks as a determinant of local economic development”, San Sebastian, 16–18 November 2005, and at the Regional Studies International conference on ‘Regional Growth Agendas’ on 28–31 May 2005 in Aalborg University, Denmark.) The empirical focus of the paper is knowledge sourcing strategies at firm level. The empirical part of the paper is based on the analysis of interviews performed at 23 companies in two Polish cities in 2000, 2001 and 2002 (Lorentzen, 2005).
This paper investigates the role of external relationships as key drivers of small business innovation. An empirical analysis is based on data for approximately 500 small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in six European countries. The results indicate that innovation performance is higher in SMEs that are proactive in strengthening their relationships with innovative suppliers, users, and customers. Furthermore, the findings of this paper support the view that SMEs will have better new product development results if they improve their relationships with laboratories and research institutes.
Despite evidence of a positive relationship between information technology (IT) investments and firm performance, results still vary across firms and performance measures. We explore two organizational explanations for this variation: differences in firms' IT investment allocations and their IT capabilities. We develop a theoretical model of IT resources, defined as the combination of specific IT assets and organizational IT capabilities. We argue that investments into different IT assets are guided by firms' strategies (e.g., cost leadership or innovation) and deliver value along performance dimensions consistent with their strategic purpose. We hypothesize that firms derive additional value per IT dollar through a mutually reinforcing system of organizational IT capabilities built on complementary practices and competencies. Empirically, we test the impact of IT assets, IT capabilities, and their combination on four dimensions of firm performance: market valuation, profitability, cost, and innovation. Our results---based on data on IT investment allocations and IT capabilities in 147 U.S. firms from 1999 to 2002---demonstrate that IT investment allocations and organizational IT capabilities drive differences in firm performance. Firms' total IT investment is not associated with performance, but investments in specific IT assets explain performance differences along dimensions consistent with their strategic purpose. In addition, a system of organizational IT capabilities strengthens the performance effects of IT assets and broadens their impact beyond their intended purpose. The results help explain variance in returns to IT capital across firms and expand our understanding of alignment between IT and organizations. We illustrate our findings with examples from a case study of 7-Eleven Japan.
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