Innovation Ecosystem Challenges And Empirical Investigation Of Smes Innovation And Growth Relationship To Their Business Environment,Organizational Capacity And Technology Adoption

The rapid technological advancements have led to a competitive environment for a single firm to compete with others in terms of products,services,and business models.Therefore,innovative firms must rely on each other to construct an innovation ecosystem that can achieve a coherent value proposition.Although such an interactive approach efficiently creates a value products and services,involved firms must face numerous challenges to retain the ecosystem’s sustainability.In the first study,a conceptual framework has been discussed in light of the significant difficulties towards the innovation ecosystem,which provides comprehensive detail of the innovation ecosystem and their coherent factors in terms of "PESTLE Analysis," indicating political,economic,social,technical,legal,and environmental as co-interacting challenges.Social difficulties have a wide-ranging impact on collaboration,knowledge mobility,and interdependency.The COVID-19 pandemic,on the other hand,was a critical environmental problem that affected the organization’s resources,capacities,and long-term viability.In this context,two model cases of telecommunication enterprises,i.e.,Apple and Huawei,have also discussed their progress in the innovation ecosystem.The push of the innovation ecosystem to SMEs has been advocated for their long-term viability and for establishing a viable pathway for improved economic,social,and environmental domains.Innovation is the primary element and a key to survival underpinning SMEs growth in today’s businesses,which is perceived as a crucial factor for competition and sustainability.This study also presents an empirical path to discover the barriers to SMEs’ innovation in evolving markets,their governmental actions,and the relationship between creative business practices,technology adoption,organizational capability,and firms’ expanding performance.The empirical study involved a survey of SMEs of diverse countries,mainly from Asia,Europe,Africa,with comparatively few numbers from the USA.Here,four formulated research hypotheses have been tested using descriptive statistics and correlational analysis of variables,including SMEs’ barriers,innovation,and growth,using Pearson correlation,hypotheses t-testing and Cronbach’s validation and reliability test.The first two hypotheses showed a high and positive correlation between SMEs growth with innovation with full support for open innovation.In contrast,partially supported the high correlation between innovation with technology and organizational capacity barriers.This study adds to our understanding of SMEs’ innovative capacities and reveals the impact of innovation barriers on SMEs’ business development and creativity.Furthermore,the research also discussed the study’s implications,limitations,and future directions.