Factorial Analysis as a tool to support the measurement of Open
Innovation practices in Small Business in important Brazilian industrial
centers
Abstract
Most of innovation studies and researches are not related to innovation
measurement and, in general, it only addresses some innovative actions
in terms of products, services or processes. This paper addresses the
difficulties in researching innovation and Open Innovation (OI)
performance metrics through an exploratory literature research followed
by a survey conducted with small technology-based enterprises incubated
at important Brazilian industrial and technological centers. It is well
known that for many small business entrepreneurs and managers, the idea
of OI practices are still restricted to large corporations. Against this
idea, this work proposes an understanding of these OI practices, besides
an analysis of its measurement. The indicators proposed by this work
developed with the support of the statistical technique of factorial
analysis, has been proved to be the most significant to measure OI at
this kind of company and, with them, it has been possible to understand
that small companies can successfully use OI and, although it is not
common today, it should be encouraged. This study’s conclusions can be
useful for researchers and Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) interested
in joining or increasing their OI practices.