The Capabilities of SME Managers for Managing Relationships in the Business Ecosystem: An Open Innovation Perspective

This study aims to identify the competencies of SME managers required for successful open innovation. This study is timely as SMEs rely highly on the managers, who are also typically the owners. Thus, the managers' competencies typically represent the organization's overall competencies. Nevertheless, previous studies have missed addressing this issue, which is the purpose of this study. Qualitative methods using a multiple case study approach were used to analyze proposed research questions. Data source triangulations were conducted to avoid bias. We organized collected data into three levels of coding, which were then classified into six competencies required for SME managers to pursue open innovation. In total, we found seven competencies of SME managers required for successful open innovation. This study offers contributions to existing knowledge in that this research is the first to examine competencies required for SME managers to undertake open innovation.