The Impacts of Wikinomics on Open Innovation in Organizations: a Study based on SMEs in Taiwan

Due to the rapid changing environment, shortening product life cycles, and increasing cost of R&D (Research and Development), the company cannot maintain its competitiveness by only relying on its internal R&D capability. Unlike the traditional closed innovation in the enterprise, open innovation and wikinomics have changed the innovation model and create a new way to success. The concepts of open innovation and wikinomics emphasize that the company should cooperate with external organizations to enhance the R&D capability and gain the competitiveness. The goal of this research is to investigate the impacts of organizational wikinomics on open innovation adoption and organizational performance. We applied five constructs to evaluate the organizational wikinomics, including collaboration, openness, interdependence, sharing and integrity. In addition, open innovations are divided into inbound and outbound one, and organizational performance is measured by R&D performance. A quantitative questionnaire survey will be conducted in this research, and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) in Taiwan are selected as the research subjects. The Research results will be helpful to understand how to apply the wikinomic strategies in SMEs to gain open innovations and R&D performance, hence the SMEs can fight with the large companies in the competitive business environment.