Supporting pervasive digitization in Italian SMEs through an open innovation process

In the last two decades, the emergence of a diverse set of novel and powerful digital technologies, platforms, and infrastructures has transformed both innovation and entrepreneurship in significant ways with broad organizational and policy implications (Nambisan, 2017; Nambisan et al., 2017; Yoo et al., 2010). Indeed, the phrase digital transformation has come into wide use in contemporary business media to signify the transformational or disruptive implications of digital technologies for businesses (eg Boutetiere et al., 2018), and more broadly, to indicate how existing companies may need to radically transform themselves to succeed in the emerging digital world (eg, McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2017; Rogers, 2016; Venkatraman, 2017). Technological development is often recognized as a prerequisite for deploying innovation efficiently because it enhances inter-organizational collaboration, which better provides access to external resources and new markets, as well as a source of new knowledge, especially when referring to SMEs (Narula, 2004; Nooteboom, 1994).