How can SMEs benefit from open innovation ?

Abstract

SUMMARY

In this thesis it's my intention to clarify how small and medium enterprises can benefit from open innovation. Above all, I chose this subject because it's linked to my study. A second reason was the fact that the subject is understudied. In this way I could contribute to the research instead of giving an overview of existing literature. The last few years we have noticed an evergrowing use of the term open innovation. There are several reasons that explain the increase in attention for this phenomenon; to me, the two most important ones are globalisation and the technological evolution. The increase in attention was most of the time linked to only large corporations. They have focused on this topic because they could gain most out of it. Also a lot of research has been done in this direction. In chapter 2 I will explain what open innovation is all about. Small and medium companies on the other hand were left out of the story, but recently the interest for the top