The Role of Innovation, External Openness and Open Innovation Management on the Innovative Performance of Small and Medium Businesses

Success in the tourism industry is the result of a new vision of innovation, called open innovation. In this regard, the present study investigates the role of innovation level, external openness, and open innovation management in the innovative performance of small and medium-sized tourism businesses in Guilan province.

This research is an applied and a descriptive-survey study in terms of purpose and method, respectively. The statistical population of the study was 713 managers of small and medium-sized tourism businesses in Guilan province. According to Cochran's formula, 250 of them were selected by purposive non-random sampling. To collect data, questionnaire of Iglesias-Sánchez et al. (2019) were used. The construct validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by convergent and divergent validity and their reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability, and factor loading. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling.

External openness and open innovation management have almost the same positive and significant effect on innovative performance and the innovation level affects innovation performance less than these two variables.

The innovative performance of tourism businesses is influenced by all three variables of innovation level, external openness and open innovation management; In fact, these variables help to introduce and offer new and high-quality products and services, increase customer satisfaction and loyalty, and finally, increase sales revenue from new products and services.