Open innovation in SMEs: The mediating role between human capital and firm performance

The paper aims to understanding Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) performance by combining two theoretical approaches, the resource-based approach and the open innovation approach, which are widely considered separately in the literature. It proposes to investigate the effect of human resources antecedents on open innovation as well as its consequences on firm performance in the specific context of SMEs. More specifically, the study examines a baseline assumption that there is a positive and indirect association between the human capital and the performance through the mediating effect of inbound open innovation. Results revealed that human capital in terms of managerial skills and social networks has an indirect positive influence on degree of innovation and global performance through a perfect mediating role exercised by the degree of openness. In addition, findings showed that the degree of openness of the innovation process always plays a role of partial mediator in the relationship between strategic vision and overall performance. Another important conclusion is that the practices of inbound open innovation strengthen, by a partial mediation effect, the positive impact of internal research and development capacity on the degree of innovation. © 2020 Elsevier Inc.