Özet
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) face growing pressure to adopt open innovation strategies as a means of sustaining competitive advantage in dynamic markets. Despite the extensive
literature on open innovation in large firms, its application within SME contexts remains insufficiently understood. This paper presents a comparative analysis of four distinct open innovation collaboration models — university-industry partnerships, inter-firm alliances, innovation intermediaries, and customer co-creation — as implemented by manufacturing SMEs in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Turkey. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 48 innovation managers and a subsequent survey of 214 firms conducted between 2023 and 2025, we evaluate the conditions under which each model delivers measurable R&D output. Our findings indicate that university-industry partnerships yield higher patent output in knowledge-intensive sectors, while customer co-creation models show superior performance in rapid-prototyping environments. The paper concludes with a decision framework for SME managers seeking to select appropriate collaboration strategies aligned with their sectoral context and internal absorptive capacity.
