Title: Clustering recent trends in the open innovation literature for SME strategy improvements

Authors: Elisa Salvador; Francesca Montagna; Federica Marcolin

Addresses: Centre de Recherche en Gestion, PREG (UMR 7176 Ecole Polytechnique - CNRS), Batiment ENSTA 828, Boulevard des Maréchaux 91762, Palaiseau Cedex, France ' Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy ' Department of Management and Production Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy

Abstract: The literature on Open Innovation is booming. In recent years, more and more contributions have been published in several scientific reviews. This increasing trend calls for an approach that could lead to a classification of the specificities of these contribution contents. This is what this paper aims to do. More specifically, our goal is to provide not a simple catalogue of the hundreds of articles published in this field, but rather it tries by cluster analysis a classification of the most important key features of the typical articles published in the field of Open Innovation, with a specific focus on implemented methods in SMEs. Notwithstanding the limitations of our attempt, the cluster analysis results provide a reference paradigm to compare existing as well as future contributions and add new insights. This paper highlights how a path dependence approach in the literature has influenced the companies Open Innovation implementation, but some recent attempts at overcoming this process are arising. This recent trend focuses on SMEs as the real key challenge.

Keywords: open innovation; SMEs; path dependence; clustering; SME strategy improvement; cluster analysis; small and medium-sized enterprises; literature review; business strategy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTPM.2013.056788

International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, 2013 Vol.13 No.4, pp.354 - 376

Received: 06 Sep 2012
Accepted: 12 Dec 2012
Published online: 30 Sep 2014 *

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