Behaviors among SMEs in terms of open innovation practices and actors involved

December 2021
Learning and Innovating
Communications avec actes dans un congrès international
Auteurs : Elodie PILLON (LINEACT), Anne Louis (LINEACT)
Conférence : 8th Annual World Open Innovation Conference 2021, 8 December 2021

This paper aims to explore the existing behaviors among SMEs in terms of open innovation practices and actors involved ; type of company where it still seems difficult to implement an open innovation approach. The objective is to identify the combinations of practices and actors to open up the innovation process, in order to help practitioners in their decision making regarding the practices to implement and the actors to collaborate with. Our results, based on a literature review and a survey of 85 SMEs in Normandy, identify 11 open innovation practices and 10 actors involved in 3 potential steps of the process. As a result, we highlight 3 different behaviors among interviewed SMEs.