Top management knowledge value, knowledge sharing practices, open innovation and organizational performance

Open innovation as driver of organizational performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has received relatively little scholarly attention. Drawing upon the resource-based view and the knowledge-based view of firms, we examined antecedents and outcome of open innovation in SMEs. We collected multisource data from 404 SMEs and used structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses. Our study suggests that top management knowledge value and knowledge creating practices influence open innovation, which, in turn, influences organizational performance. Results of the study are discussed in the light of previous studies and suggest implications for theory and practice of open innovation.