Open Innovation in the small and medium-sized enterprises in North-Eastern Italy: challenges and opportunities for growth

Abstract

As far as industrial organisation is concerned, the current and traditional economic situation of the Italian North-East denotes a strong prevalence of small and medium-sized enterprises (hereinafter, and in accordance with the literature, referred to as SMEs) which often belong to industrial districts. Such districts have been widely studied in terms of how the companies in the district could manage to attain superior performance levels thanks to a process of clusterization allowing them to efficiently exploit a multitude of linkages along and across different value chains. Recently, while still retaining a strong traditional character, several companies have distinguished themselves both nationally and internationally thanks to their innovativeness. Due to their size and the inherent constraints, it is generally not expected of SMEs to use Open Innovation practices because of an array of alleged problems, however that does not necessarily imply they would not be able to reap the benefits Open Innovation can bring, provided the process is carefully organised and managed. The purpose of this study is to present the current state of Open Innovation practices among manufacturing SMEs in the Italian North-East and draft a set of recommendations for the implementation of such practices on a larger basis.