The Effects of Knowledge from Collaborations on the Exploitative and Exploratory Innovation Output of Greek SMEs

There is very limited research linking the collaborations of Greek SMEs and their innovation output. This paper uses the exploitation / exploration framework and links it to the knowledge flows towards SMEs coming through their collaborations. It explores three types of knowledge, namely managerial, technological and market-related. It finds that the exchange of management knowledge has a positive and significant effect on exploratory innovation only, the exchange of technical / technological knowledge has a negative and significant effect on exploitative and exploratory innovation output, and the exchange of market knowledge does not have an effect on any type of innovation output. Also, partnering with same nationality firms has a negative effect on exploratory innovation and particularly for exploitative innovation the existence of a collaboration manager has a negative effect. Most of these findings are corroborated by interviews with 10 managers of Greek SMEs.