INTRODUCTION

Innovation is vital to advancing living standards of firms (Gronum et al., 2012). Innovation in firms takes place when knowledge is commercialized, in the forms of new products, services, or business models (Baldwin and Gallantly, 2003). Since Schumpeter (1950) suggested that large firms are more likely to innovate than smaller ones, researcher have investigated the relationship among innovation, performance and firm size (Gronum et al., 2012) i.e. Rosenbusch et al., 2011. Investigating this process in small and medium firms is more recent and, although the evidence of strong correlations between innovation and small and medium enterprises (SME) performance is overwhelming (Gronum et al. 2012), e.g., (Baldwin and Gallantly, 2003; Mansury and Love, 2008; Roper et al. 2002), the dynamics of this relationship remain ambiguous (Gronum et al 2012).

Innovation in inter-organizational networks has achieved the status of a relevant subject matter in managerial studies (Dagnino et al. 2015).

The direct effects of network connections may differ in the case of SME’s (Gronum et al., 2012). Yet, the dominant view in literature is that networks and the relationships embedded are positive associated with innovations performance (Pettaway et al., 2004; van Wilk et al., 2008) but empirical evidence is inconclusive (Gronum et al. 2012).

Although the phenomenon of innovation of SME’s has captured the interest of many scholars, few studies recorded on studying the issue form developing countries perspective (Zeng et al. 2010).

Previous studies such as Dagnino (2015), Pittaway et al. (2004) and Phelps et al. (2012) have offered reviews on networks and innovation in bibliometric approach and Santos et al. (2015) researched innovation and technological capabilities. The missing point is that no one of them had research only in SME’s context.

Our main goal is to map the authors and journals and the evolution of publication about innovation, networks and SME’s. We may believe this article as a guide to whoever want to study these themes, in as integrated way, and this study may build theoretical insights on it. To achieve our objectives, we conducted a bibliometric approach on the terms – innovation, networks and SME’s.

It becomes important to say that this study is not only concerned about innovation networks – networks that aim mainly to achieve innovation outcomes – but to verify the innovation performance of firms and the network itself in firms collaborating in any kind of network as well.

This paper is organized as follows. In the following section we resume the concepts researched, in an integrated way. In Method we present the methodological features. In Findings, we bring the analysis of literature and propose possibilities for future research and gaps founded. The final section acknowledges the limitations of the study.

INNOVATION, NETWORKS AND SME’S

It’s important, based on the objective of the study, to bring concepts of “Innovation”, “Networks” and “Small and Medium Enterprises”. It is difficult to define SME’s, not only with the fact that the definitions changes with time but also the definition varies from countries to countries and in different size ranges (Peres and Stumpo, 2000). In China, for example, the criteria are based in number of employees or annual revenue, for those with fewer than 2000 employs or an annual turnover less than RMB Yuan 400 million, equivalent to US$5,6 million.

In Brazil, the criteria is based on annual revenue, witch it’s up to US$1 million per year for being considered Small Enterprise and up to ~US$3 million for being considered medium enterprise. Therefore, it can be followed the American Small Business Administration (SBA’s) definition of SME which is the most widely used in business literature, and considers SME the ones who have fewer than 500 employees.

Innovation, according to the Oslo’s Manual definition (2005) is the implementation of any new or significantly improved product (goods or services), operational process, any new marketing methods or new organizational or managerial methods or process in business practices, workplace organization or external relations. Innovation can be viewed both as output and a process (Gronum et al. 2012).

As an output, in the result of innovation process, the types of innovations created by a firm, or the actual implementation of a new product or method. Also indicates the development and commercial exploitation of a new idea or invention, according to van de Ven and Poole (1989) the process of innovation refers to a temporal sequence of events that occur as people interact with others in order to develop and implement their innovation ideas within as institutional context. Both can affect the firm performance (Rosenbusch et al. 2011).

Networks have been identified as an important factor in numerous studies of the innovations process (Gronum et al. 2012). Burt (2004) and Ahuja (2000) showed that the number and the structure of connections in networks can improve innovations outcomes.

Chesbrough (2006) demonstrated the importance of networks in open innovation, where firms achieved and sustain it by using a wide range of external actors and knowledge sources. Literature on innovation indicates that since the 90’ there has been a systematic and fundamental change in the way firms undertake innovation activities. There has been a growth in the use of external networks by firms of all sizes. Innovation is seen as a process which results from various interactions among different actors (Zeng et al., 2010).

The topic of innovation in SMEs has received a great deal of attention from scholar (Batterink et al. 2010), such as Edwards at el. (2005). Nooteboom (1994) addressed a number of characteristics of SME’s that can be considered either strengths or weaknesses for their innovation process. Well-known strengths are motivated management and labor, effective internal communication and few bureaucracies. Weaknesses include limited absorptive capacity, lack of innovation funding, lack of functional expertise, diseconomies of scale and the short-term perspective of management.

Such weakness are cited as a justification for establishing relations with external actors. There are several reasons why SME find it difficult to establish and benefit form inter-organizational innovations projects (Batterink et al. 2010):

• SME’s are often managed by owners, who are used to operate independently and cooperation does not come naturally (Wissema and Euser, 1991);  Cultural differences and lack of joint research experience (Hoffman and Schlosser, 2001).

• Small firms can not enforce their will upon other;

• Inter-organizational project may involve organizations with divergent institutional and cultural backgrounds.

Networking can be a complementary factor in situations where cooperation and networking are need to achieve economies of scale and/or to merge and integrate diverse skills, technologies and competencies (Mancinelli and Mazzanti, 2008). SMEs maintain few external relationships in their innovative process (Kaminski et al., 2008).

The requirement of SMEs to collaborate, as a means of supplementing and complementing internal resources, has dominated much of the academic debate (Cumbers et al., 2003; Fukugawa, 2006).

Considering that, it becomes important to investigate the role of SME Networks over innovation process and innovation as an outcome.

METHOD

Considering the object of the study, we conduct a bibliometric study, looking for the evolution of the topics: most relevant authors, most relevant journals and the evolution in time as well. In order to attend to that, we choose to use three different databases: Scopus, Science Direct and Web of Science. A bibliometric study refers to applying statistical methods to determine qualitative and quantitative changes in a scientific research topic, establish the profile of publications on the topics and detect tendencies (According to De Bakker et al. 2005).

Yet, bibliometric tools make it possible to explore research studies in terms of analytical influential contributions and their connections that have supported the conceptual development of a field (Di Stefano et al. 2010).

The first search was conducted in Web of Science database only. The search protocol we used was “TITLE: (“INNOVATION” AND “NETWORK”) AND

TOPIC: (“SME” OR “SMALL FIRM”)”. This protocol has established searches to documents in which contain the words “Innovation” and “Network” in the title of document, and the words “sme” or “small firm” along the entire document. In relation to year of publication we used the interval from 1945 to 2016. The first search related to 130 documents, which are part part of the evolution data we show in findings. In order to guarantee the reliability, the same protocol was conducted in Scopus database. From this search, two new documents were added to the select ones, considering citation number.

Then, aiming to perform qualitative analysis, we created criteria, which was the selection of the thirty most cited documents. Among them, we used the following criteria:

• Documents Type: Only Article;

• Only Journals rated Q1 in business area, according to Scimago.

In short, for the purpose of bibliometric data the sample used was 130 documents and for building better theoretical bases, through qualitative analysis of 30 documents, only Q1 publishing journals and only articles were selected.

FINDINGS

The first appearance of all these themes integrated was in 1991. The following decade publication kept low. Since 2002 it was turning up, in 2010 it has reached the highest peak with 15 publications. From 2011 until now has been stable with an average 10 publications per year.

Figure 01: Number of publications using the terms Innovation, Networks and SME’s per year, total amount:130.

The results also shows the most publishing journals considering the topics. The three first positions are occupied by Technovation, European Planning Studies and Research Policy. These three journals represent around 13% of all publications. Despite this distribution, there does not seem to have any dominant journal. Considering the object of the analysis (SME’s), seems to be relevant the fact that there are two journals dedicated exclusively to this size of firm – Journal of Small Business Management and International Small Business Journal.

The results also shows the most publishing journals considering the topics. The three first positions are occupied by Technovation, European Planning Studies and Research Policy. These three journals represent around 13% of all publications. Despite this distribution, there does not seem to have any dominant journal. Considering the object of the analysis (SME’s), seems to be relevant the fact that there are two journals dedicated exclusively to this size of firm – Journal of Small Business Management and International Small Business Journal. Importar tabla

Table 01: Number of documents published per journal

Among the authors, and similar to the journals, of all publications related to the topics. This there is not one that we could refer as the most demonstrate that there are a large number of relevant in area, since there is fair distribution of authors researching the issues.

publications. No author has published more than 4%

In Table 03 we show the 30 most cited articles. The External networking and innovation in small and most cited is “Interfirm collaboration networks: The medium-sized manufacturing firms in Europe” from impact of large-scale network structure on firm 1991, which is considered the first paper regarding innovation”, with 278 citations. We can also check” the topics with 117 citations.

Table 03: Most cited papers

After reviewing all 30 articles, we identified difference and clustered them on the criteria of the level of analysis. We identified three levels of analysis: a) Industry level; b) Network

(interorganizational) level; and c) firm level. This dimensions were also found in Dagnino (2015).

Yet,

we found articles that relates to brokers and four theoretical issues. The following tables and discussion brings the 3 dimensions found and specials sessions dedicated to brokers and the theoretical issues.

Though the research is about inter-organizational theme, we found articles that used the firm as a level of analysis. Rogers (2014) says that small manufacturing firms achieve more innovation than non-manufacturing ones. Smith et. Al (1991), which is the first article regarding the themes, investigated relationships and said that the more personal the relations are the more potential to collaboration between small and large companies.

The majority of the studies (47%) includes the Network Level of Analysis, in which we can observe some similarities. Schilling et al. (2007), the most cited paper, concluded that " Clustering " and "reach " operate for the creation and diffusion of innovation and suggested to include other properties of alliances (strength, governance structure and scope).

Innovation performance was research in several articles as a dependent variable. In Zeng et al. (2010), its relation with co-operation with several agents (government, firms, agencies and institutions); Gronum et al. (2012) found no positive relationship between networking an innovation performance; Thorgren et al. (2009) found that the larger the network is and the higher formals mechanisms of governance are the greater innovation performance

becomes. Zeng (2010) suggested to replicate study in different countries and to include moderating effects such as industry, innovation type and company size.

Knowledge was considered in Sammara and Biggiero (2008), when investigating the exchange of knowledge and left seven proposition to future studies. Cambra-Fierro et al. (2011) investigated market-orientation as an antecedent for innovation. Chiffoleau (2005) and Westerlund and Rajala (2009) investigated knowledge and learning theories as a determinant for innovation. Westerlund and Rajala (2009) found differences between exploitative and explorative learning. Molina-Moralez et al. (2010) suggested investigating the role of intermediaries. Intermediaries or brokers were found in the research and show in Table 07.

High technological industries, such as biotechnology, automotive, pharmaceutics and software were observed in the articles classified as Industry Level of analysis. Dilk et al. (2008) approached the automotive supply chain and investigated innovative performance and governance and according to them It can be expected that innovation networks will spread further and gain more importance in the coming years. The most important goals that the involved companies aim to realize by using innovation networks include flexible access to technologies, intensified contact with clients and markets and long-term bonding of suppliers and clients. Freel (2003) concluded that “reach” is higher for large firms while in small firms the local factor becomes predominant.

Brokers or intermediates were found to be an important agent over network innovation process. According to Hanna and Walsh (2002) brokers identify opportunities, bring small firms together and facilitate co-operation. Diez (2000) found that vertical cooperation has greater contribution than institutions. Though, Molina-Moralez et. Al (2010) found positive relation between institutions and innovation. Löfsten and Lindelöf (2005), examined corporate Spin-offs and University Spin-offs and found that both are effective to innovation activity but the first over perform in patents.

It does not seem to be clear the effectiveness of brokers, mainly Institutions and Universities in their

relation no innovative performance of SME’s. Lee et. Al (2010) suggested to investigate the characteristics of SMEs that are more likely to benefit from the intermediary. Also, Batterink et. Al (2010) suggested quantitative studies on innovation brokers, both at the level of innovation networks (comparing networks that are being orchestrated by an innovation broker with networks that are not) and at the level of the innovation broker, comparing different types of innovation brokers and the impact of their specific tools and instruments, and certain organizational characteristics on performance.

Four Theoretical discussions were also found in the 30 most cited papers. Three of them (Coan et. Al., 2007; Baum et. Al., 2010; Cowan and Jonard, 2009) included knowledge to discuss innovation and networks in SME contexts. Cowan et. Al (2007) considered the enbeddedness to explain how companies combine knowledge to create innovation. Yet, two articles (Baum et. Al., 2010; Cowan and Jonard, 2009) opposes or combine with base theories including knowledge. In relation to structures (vertically or horizontally) Robertson and Langlois (1995) pointed that there is best form a priori, since the context of innovation is complex and varied.

Considering the 30 analyzed articles, regarding method, most of empirical studies used quantitative approach (65%), and most of these (71%) used survey as the research instrument. Another 35% of empirical studies used qualitative approach, and case of study was the most used instrument. We suggest the research about the themes is dominated by quantitative methods.

We identified in some papers, the explicit use of base theories, such as Social Capital Theory in MolinaMoralez and Martínez-Fernandez (2010), Relational View in Cambra-Fierro et al. (2011), Strength of Weak

Ties in Julien et al. (2004) and RBV in Virkkala (2007).

We concluded that there is not a dominant base theory in the topics researched.

We also observed that most of the studies used as an empirical object high-technology industries, which is according to Dagnino (2015) research. We suggested, as futures studies, to analyze low-tech industries. For Santamaria et al. (2009) literature in innovation management overestimates the role of research and development activity (R &D) as an internal determinant of innovative ability of companies, and likewise, Schmierl and Köhler (2005), Hirsh-Kreinsen et al. (2006) and Gil Barge et al. (2008) highlight that this is due to the predominance of the linear model of innovation, for R&D statistics and the lack of knowledge of how is the process of innovation in low- tech companies.

Most of studies were conducted in developed countries. We suggest to replicate or even apply new studies in development countries. Few of the studies were conducted in BRICS, which can be replicated and compared to future studies in Brazil. In fact, we recommend to conduct studies in Brazil.

Another recommendation for future studies refers to governance structure in networks or interorganizational environments, which was also proposed by Robertson and Langlois (1995). When defining the best governance structure, or even the structure of the network itself (vertically you horizontally integrated) private and public initiative could benefit from the best structure to obtain best gains in innovative performance. Thus, the network members would benefit as well.

Regarding intermediaries or brokers there does not seems to be consensus about the effective role of them, mainly about universities and public research institutes. Well, if even in high-technology industries this is observed, further investigation could examine this in small and medium enterprises in low-tech industries. In fact, even in high-technology cluster, such as automotive we observe that small enterprises do not maintain a P&D budget. Which, as a consequence reveals more exploitation and incremental innovations in process. Universities and research institutes should also focus on developing small companies in relation to their exploration – innovations in product level.

Finally, as also proposed by Dagnino (2015) a multi-level approach to the themes is a gap in the literature. As well as Dagnino (2015) we identified three levels of analysis of the themes: firm level, industry level and network (or inter-organizational) level. No document in the sample proposed a multilevel analysis.

CONCLUSION

Innovation and networks in the small and medium firms context seems to be a prominent field of study. Publications considering them increased over last decade and through bibliometric studies and content analysis we identified few dominance, even in methods, base theories and in conclusions as well.

As one limitation of the study, we consider the fact of analyzing just the most cited articles. Considering that, the state-of-art regarding the subjects of the research could had been missed, as long as the most current studies were not considered within the research. At the same, further studies, considering the most current studies, could verify and even integrate their results with the research showed over this paper. Another limitation is due to the exclusivity of searching only documents in English. Further studies could include documents published in Italian, Spanish and French.

International Journal of Innovation (IJI Journal), São Paulo, Importar tabla

Finally, further studies could consider the recommendations already mentioned, such as investigating on how innovative performance could enhanced in low technological industries or firms. Also, replicate studies in development countries, specially in BRICS. Investigating the effectiveness of intermediaries in this process. Yet, the main gap found in the literatures – conduct multi-level investigations. There is also possibility for further studies to explore the evolution of propositions and hypotheses brought by the 4 theoretical issues.

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