CHARACTERISING ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY SUPPORTING SMEs’ LEARNINGS WITHIN COLLABORATIVE INNOVATION NETWORKS: INSIGHTS FROM MULTI-LEVEL CASE STUDIES

Lamiae Benhayoun, Marie-Anne Le-Dain () and Carine Dominguez-Péry ()
Additional contact information
Lamiae Benhayoun: Institut Mines-Télécom Business School, LITEM, 9, rue Charles Fourier, 91011 Evry Cedex, France
Marie-Anne Le-Dain: Génie Industriel, Grenoble INP, G-SCOP, 46, Avenue Félix Viallet, 38000 Grenoble, France
Carine Dominguez-Péry: IAE Grenoble, Université Grenoble Alpes, CERAG, 525, Avenue Centrale, 38400 Saint-Martin-d’Hères, France

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), 2021, vol. 25, issue 04, 1-71

Abstract: Through collaborative innovation networks (CINs), SMEs access valuable knowledge which requires the deployment of their absorptive capacity (ACAP) to be efficiently used. A small and medium enterprise (SME) absorbs this knowledge to fulfil reciprocal learning for achieving the network innovation goal, but also one-way learning to individually improve its performance. Nevertheless, no study explains how these opposing learnings unfold for SMEs in CINs to guide their ACAP deployment. Based on three cases of CINs including SMEs and two focus groups, we propose a characterisation of ACAP supporting SMEs’ learnings within CINs. As a result, an SME deploys acquisition, assimilation and application actions and attitudes to contribute to the CIN’s setting-up and operational stages, while fulfilling one-way learning. These practices have different focuses and intensity according to the network stage and the SME’s contextual setting. Hence, this study highlights the peculiarities of ACAP that enable SMEs in CINs manage the interplay between reciprocal and one-way learnings.

Keywords: Open innovation; collaborative networks; absorptive capacity; SMEs; inter-organisational learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S136391962150047X
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:ijimxx:v:25:y:2021:i:04:n:s136391962150047x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S136391962150047X

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim) is currently edited by Joe Tidd

More articles in International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().