Open Innovation Effort, Entrepreneurship Orientation and their Synergies onto Innovation Performance in SMEs of Korea

While open innovation has become a popular strategy to enhance innovation in firms, open innovation in the context of entrepreneurship is not yet well understood. Particularly in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the necessity of understanding the role of entrepreneurship combined with open innovation is much greater. This research focuses on the role of entrepreneurship in the open innovation process and its impact on innovation performance. Our primary research question is: What are the impacts of open innovation, entrepreneurship and their synergy effects onto innovation performance, especially onto Korean Information Technology (IT) SMEs? To answer this question, a survey was conducted about open innovation, entrepreneurship orientation, business models and sales, and innovation performance for approximately 400 Korean SMEs in the IT sector. The regression results and findings from the analysis are presented and discussed.