Learning of Innovation Opportunities

What is it about?

The paper explores how small and medium-sized hotels in Ghana identify and capitalize on innovation opportunities by engaging in open innovation. The research identified that hotels in the sample sourced ideas for open innovation through staff suggestions and manager observations (inside-out processes), customer feedback, competitor analysis, and public surveys (outside-in processes), and collaborative meetings with competitors (coupled process). The study highlights that by strategically interacting with their environment and building capabilities to process knowledge, small and medium-sized hotels can enhance their innovation capacity and long-term sustainability despite limited internal resources.

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Why is it important?

Whilst open innovation has been identified as a critical source of competitive differentiation within the hospitality industry, how small and medium-sized enterprises and enterprises in developing countries engage in open innovation has been highlighted as being under researched. The findings highlight the importance of learning from a variety of sources in identifying possibilities to innovate products, services, and processes, as well as identifying low-cost and easily accessible information sources to help innovation identification.

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