Abstract

This paper aims to explore the small and medium sized enterprises'(SMEs') technological innovation through an open innovative strategy. Researchers have identified open innovation as external search 'breadth' and 'depth'. Although an open innovation strategy is well known as an effective way for SMEs' innovation, this stream of research examines differences between pursuing breadth of external knowledge and depth of external knowledge for SEMs' innovation. The sample comprises a total of 1106 SMEs included in the Korean Innovation Survey, and logistic regression analysis and odds ratio comparison were used to evaluate the relationship between external knowledge search and innovation outcomes. The results show that both 'breadth' and 'depth' positively affect the SMEs' innovation. When SMEs are simultaneously pursuing external searching for breadth and depth, however, a negative result on innovation outcome followed because of the lack of their internal resources and capacities. Despite these contributions, we have certain limitations that can be regarded as means of future research. Even though breadth and depth are adopted to measure the way of how a firm sources the external knowledge, companies may place the different weight on each source of knowledge. And also, it is difficult to understand how the knowledge gained through external search contributes to a firm's incremental and radical innovation, respectively.

Keywords

• Breadth;
• Depth;
• External knowledge search;
• SMEs;
• Innovation outcome