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How to Foster Innovation? A Methodology to Identify Fields for Fostering Innovation Capability in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2019

Tarık Şahin*
Affiliation:
Technische Universität Braunschweig
Leonhard Riedel
Affiliation:
Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences
David Inkermann
Affiliation:
Technische Universität Braunschweig
Dagmar Wilgeroth
Affiliation:
Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences
Reza Asghari
Affiliation:
Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences
Thomas Vietor
Affiliation:
Technische Universität Braunschweig
*
Contact: Şahin, Tarık, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Institute for Engineering Design, Germany, tarik.sahin@tu-braunschweig.de

Abstract

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Small and medium-sized enterprises are affected by changing development, production and selling paradigms in globalized industries, where innovation is a driver for sustainable competitiveness. However, innovating is highly challenging for small and medium-sized enterprises, as human resources are very limited and know-how are often highly specialized. It is often unclear which fields and factors provide the capability to innovate and which measures or methods can be applied to promote innovation based on existing competencies.

For this reason, the aim of this paper is to present a framework to support the innovation capability of SMEs by identifying promising fields for innovation and providing suitable innovation methods. A particular focus in this paper is a methodology for the description and identification of fields to foster the innovation capability in SMEs as a part of the introduced framework.

Type
Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019

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