Learning of innovation opportunities: sources and processes of open innovation for sustaining SME hotels

Purpose – Open innovation is a critical source of competitive differentiation within the hospitality industry. However, open innovation remains underexplored in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and there is a dearth of knowledge about open innovation processes and mechanisms in the hospitality industry.
This study aims to address this lacuna by investigating how locally owned Ghanaian SME hotels source ideas for their open innovation practices and what open innovation processes they use to identify opportunities.
Design/methodology/approach – This exploratory qualitative study adopted a multiple-case study design using a purposive-homogenous sample of six two-star locally owned SME hotels. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using thematic analysis.
Findings – The research found that Ghanaian SME hotels sourced ideas for open innovation through staff suggestions and manager observations (inside-out processes), customer feedback, competitor analysis and public surveys (outside-in processes), and collaborative meetings with competitors (coupled process).
Practical implications – The results demonstrate the value of learning from a range of sources to identify opportunities to innovate products, services and processes and identify low-cost and easy-to-access information sources to support innovation identification.
Originality/value – Open innovation procedures in emerging countries and how SME hotels get knowledge for open innovation practices and processes are unexplored. This research identifies how SME hotels source open innovation ideas, providing a potential pathway for other similarly resource-constrained businesses to identify innovation opportunities.
Keywords Open innovation, Sourcing innovation, Ghana, Hospitality, Small and medium enterprises,Innovation processes
Paper type Research paper