Digital Innovations and SMEs : a systematic literature review and future research agenda

Abstract

Digital technologies are altering competitive grounds in the different sectors of the economy worldwide. Therefore, the research on digital technologies in business and management literature has observed an increasing trend. However, despite growing research on digital innovations in SMEs, we lack an understanding of SMEs' external knowledge and resources exploration and exploitation to build digital innovations. Therefore, this research synthesizes the literature on SMEs' knowledge and resources exploration and exploitation for developing digital innovations. By conducting a systemic literature review, we identified actors and collaborative mechanisms that help SMEs overcome their resource and technological knowledge limitations. Furthermore, with the help of existing literature, we also explain the exploitation process of externally acquired knowledge and resources into organizational internal digital innovation systems.