Determining the Priority of Factors Affecting the Participation of Small and Medium Businesses in Open Innovation Activities

While open innovation in some circumstances is detrimental to a number of SMEs, many have benefited from the use of open innovation strategies around the world. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is providing a developed model of moderating factors affecting SMEs' degree of participation in open innovation activities.

In this regard, an appropriate model was defined by studying the literature about effective factors on the degree of SMEs' participation in open innovation activities according to Iran’s situation. In the second stage, after selecting a sample of 60 SMEs in Iran, in order to quantitatively testing the model, the data were collected by a questionnaire and were analyzed with the help of Smart PLS software. In the third stage, the relative importance of factors was tested from the perspective of 10 experts in the field of open innovation along with experienced managers of the SMEs with more than 15 years of work experience with the help of ANP and PROMETHEE methods.

The results showed that these factors include the parameters: Product Characteristics, Inter-organizational Factors, and Environmental Factors.

The most important factors include Product Characteristics. Finally, several implications were made according to Iran’s conditions.