The role of open innovation and absorptive capacity in innovation performance: Empirical evidence from Slovenia

Although research on open innovation practices in larger and smaller organisations has been growing for over a decade, there has been limited evidence on the topic related to new and candidate members of the European Union. Existing studies of open innovation have predominantly focused on the examination of the phenomenon in companies from the most developed European countries (i.e. EU15). In this research, we examine how absorptive capacity and open innovation interact to impact innovation performance, based on a large dataset of companies operating in Slovenia. We contribute to the literature on open innovation by showing how an organisation's capacity for open innovation can be used to its full potential in order to impact the firm's performance.