Development process of technological process innovation in the manufacturing industry
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2019-08-29
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en
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Abstract
Companies must innovate to remain competitive in an increasingly changing environment. They can innovate their processes, whereby the implementation of technologies in the production process leads to technological process innovation (hereinafter referred to as process innovations). Compared to product innovation, little research has been done regarding the development and implementation of process innovations. In addition, many success stories of open innovation can be found in the literature, however, open innovation focusing on process innovation remains relatively neglected. This has led this study to focus on how process innovation is developed and
which innovation approach -open versus closed- is most effective for this, whereby the innovation approaches distinguishes themselves in the way in which internal and external R&D are utilized.This study focuses on SMEs in the manufacturing industry. In this study it was theorized that internal R&D and open innovation have a positive influence on the realization of process innovation, due to the use of tacit knowledge of regular employees and the use of external expertise.To obtain results, a mixed method study has been applied. First, use has been made from the European Manufacturing Survey (2015). A multiple regression analysis examined the effect of internal R&D on process innovation and the moderating effect of external R&D on this relationship. It turns out that these relationships were not significant and therefore could not be
confirmed. Second, semi-structured interviews were conducted to investigate these relationships and to get more insight into the development process of process innovation. One finding based on the qualitative analysis in this study was that open innovation is the key in innovating processes by SMEs. Another finding based on the qualitative analysis is that a modified version of the Stage-Gate model of Cooper is applicable to the development process of process innovation, wherein other activities play a role in comparison to product innovation. The results of this study have
theoretical implications but are also useful for SMEs that want to realize process innovations. It describes ways how SMEs can realize process innovations in an effective way. The findings together with the recommendations for future research will help to understand and extend the existing literature on the development process of process innovation and the role of open innovation in it.
Keywords: external R&D, internal R&D, manufacturing industry, open innovation, SME,
technological process innovation
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen