Co-Innovation Supports the Research and Development (R&D) in Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

SMEs are subject to constraints in internal resources such as capital, human resources, and knowledge due to their small size. Also, access to external resources is limited due to market failures. Thus, SMEs have disadvantages in R & D and innovation when compared to larger fi rms. To overcome these gaps, SMEs should searching for innovative creative mechanisms to conduct R & D activities. Accordingly, this study describes the co-innovation approach, as one of the successful methods of value creation supported by a collaborative process that links the SMEs and external stakeholders in interactive experiences to achieve common goals, shows the importance of adopting Co-innovation networks in SMEs to enable them to deal with new technological and market boundaries and deal with the rapidly changing environment at a lower cost than traditional methods. For Extending the knowledgebased view of the SMEs this study focuses on the different types of R & D collaboration with external stakeholders: universities, suppliers, customers, and competitors, as each type of R & D collaboration differs in terms of the breadth of new knowledge provided to the SMEs, Co-innovation enables SMEs to acquire new complementary knowledge to overcome economic, environmental and societal challenges. The presented case study of the OIS platform shows how co-innovation can be successfully support SMEs to integrate external knowledge into their innovation processes. This study is meant to emphasizing the importance of applying the co-innovation approach to support R & D in SMEs, by establishing mutually collaborative relationships with various stakeholders.