Dorothee StröhAbsorptive Capacity of SMEs

About this book deutschenglish

The ever faster changing business environment in most Western countries requires firms to quickly adapt to external changes and thus creates a constant pressure to innovate. The ability to develop innovative products and services is, therefore, one of the critical success factors for sustained competitiveness.

Small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) face even greater challenges than large companies in their attempts to develop innovations due to limited financial and human resources as well as a restricted scope of qualifications and competencies. Partly due to these limitations in size and resources, many SMEs do not have a formal R&D department and do not conduct R&D activities on a permanent basis. Concerning the pressure to innovate in combination with the restrictions to build up in-house R&D, the usage of external sources of information for innovation activities poses an attractive option for SMEs. This study focuses on analyzing how SMEs can successfully use information from customers, suppliers and other information sources outside the own company in order to develop ideas for innovation. By using a combination of qualitative exploratory research and a large-scale quantitative questionnaire survey the author finds proof for the importance of using organizational routines for the acquisition and transformation of external information and identifies specific organizational routines that SMEs can use to acquire external information and transform it into innovative ideas. Furthermore, the study reveals how the organizational environment should be organized to support the successful use of external information for the development of innovation ideas in SMEs. The study thus provides concrete and actionable recommendations for small and medium-sized companies who wish to use external information sources in order to develop ideas for innovation.

Ihr Werk im Verlag Dr. Kovač

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Dissertation veröffentlichen