Presentation by Temitope Akinremi at ISBE 2019

1. Temitope.Akinremi@wbs.ac.uk
Enterprise Research Centre
Warwick Business School
University of Warwick
The Reality of Innovation Collaboration
in SMEs (UK Foundries & Metal-Forming
Firms)
Temitope Akinremi, Stephen Roper

2. Context
• We consider two UK Industry Sectors ;
 Metal Forming Industry
 Foundry Industry
• SME dominated industries
• Imprints across the UK manufacturing sector and global markets
• Challenging manufacturing process
• Responding to changing demand
• Fair share of closures in recent decade

3. Introduction
• Why do firms collaborate?
 External collaboration for innovation has several potential benefits, improved
product quality, reduced time-to-market, cost and risk sharing, etc.
 Beneficial for SMEs-combining resources, sharing risks, quicker time to
markets.
• The adoption of innovation collaboration in SMEs remain limited
(Piperopoulos and McAdam, 2013; Freel and Robson, 2017).
• There is a need for innovative practices in manufacturing SMEs
• We investigate the perception of firms on innovation collaboration,
collaboration practices and innovation trends

4. Data and Methods
• Qualitative research technique; Purposive Sampling (Guest et al. 2006)
• Conducted 25 semi-structured interviews across the industry sectors
• Codes were developed and emergent themes identified
• Information-rich categories were developed to describe the evolving
theme
• Analysis process was iterative and reflective (Taylor and Gibbs 2010)

5. Main findings
• How innovation is perceived; Definition, Motivation & Practice
 Definition of Innovation
 Innovation Motivation
 Current Practice
“… creation of new parts, new machines,
expanding into the unknown. We use our
initiative and a bit of imagination to try and
design something different that somebody else
can't design…” (Director in a medium-sized
metal forming firm).

6. Main findings
• Industry Challenges
• Types of Collaboration
• Barriers to innovation Collaboration
• Recent Technological changes
the technological change would be the 3D printing. That has been a big innovator for us, just
looking at those innovative technologies and trying to use those as part of our process”
(Director of a medium-sized casting company).

7. Main findings
• Benefits of Technological Changes
• Challenges in adopting Technological changes

8. Conclusions
• Innovation and its benefit are grounded concepts in the case-study sectors
• Increased technological change and process improvements evident in
some firms while others are still constrained by the financial investment
• Existence of innovation-focused collaborations between firms and supply
chain partners
• Inter-firm collaboration is non-existent in the sectors
• Effort towards further development of technological capabilities necessary
• Support for the development and transfer of new knowledge via supply
chain firms and business networks

9. Thank you

10. What does the literature say
• External collaboration for innovation in SMEs
 Benefits (Gassmann et al. (2010), Laursen and Salter (2014), and
diminishing returns (Laursen and Salter (2006), Hewitt-Dundas and
Roper (2017).
 Disparity in innovation collaboration between SMEs (Van de Vrande
(2009) and large firms (Chesbrough 2006)
• Benefits from innovation collaboration in SMEs
 A firm’s ability to engage in collaborative strategies is influenced by its absorptive and desorptive
capacities (Braun et al. (2012), Spithoven et al. (2013), Cohen and Levinthal (1990), Grimaldi et al. (2013).
 Partner selection and number of partners in collaboration network important in innovation interactions
(Chen et al. 2011, Brunswicker and Ehrenmann 2013, Tomlinson 2010)
 Availability of potential innovation partners influenced by industry exogenous factors and sectoral
structure (Parida et al. 2012, Hewitt-Dundas 2012, Levinthal and March 1993)

11. What does the literature say
• Benefits from innovation collaboration in SMEs
 A firm’s ability to engage in collaborative strategies is influenced by its absorptive
and desorptive capacities (Braun et al. (2012), Spithoven et al. (2013), Cohen
and Levinthal (1990), Grimaldi et al. (2013).
 Partner selection and number of partners in collaboration network important in
innovation interactions (Chen et al. 2011, Brunswicker and Ehrenmann 2013,
Tomlinson 2010)
 Availability of potential innovation partners influenced by industry exogenous
factors and sectoral structure (Parida et al. 2012, Hewitt-Dundas 2012, Levinthal
and March 1993)
• External collaboration for innovation in SMEs
 Benefits (Gassmann et al. (2010), Laursen and Salter (2014), and diminishing returns (Laursen and Salter
(2006), Hewitt-Dundas and Roper (2017).
 Disparity in innovation collaboration between SMEs (Van de Vrande (2009) and large firms (Chesbrough
2006)