Managing Open Innovation in SMEs : The CAS Software AG Case Study

The concept of open innovation lies at the heart of the current research debate on innovation and strategy. Existing literature indicates that firms vitalize their interest in opening their innovation processes and business models to commercialize not only their own ideas but also external ones. However, existing work mostly concentrates on large firms and does not study open innovation in SMEs. This paper investigates the organizational capabilities for managing open innovation in SMEs. Our single case study analysis highlights that SMEs require new internal managerial capabilities for open innovation. It discusses six dimensions of a managerial system for open innovation: strategy, culture, corporate structure, cross-company network structure, process and IT-support. Further, it presents the transformation process of the CAS software AG and reveals the evolutionary character of the change process from closed to open innovation with different maturity levels