Menage a trois! Innovation, digital and knowledge transfer

Knowledge transfer is often seen as a mechanism to support innovation of this sort, and in this paper, we describe work aimed at developing an understanding of such collaborations. Within this setting we believe that the adoption of digital technologies can lead companies on a path that can take them into new and challenging territories. Our work focuses upon support for digital innovation for Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) aiming to identify alternatives/strategies for establishing effective knowledge transfer based innovation. We analysed existing digital innovation models and instruments in order to develop an understanding of the factors valued in characterising digital innovation. Our findings show that although existing approaches have a useful role in digital innovation, they are however inappropriate for SMEs, who have probably not been involved in such a transformation. In addition, this paper reports on the early instrument developed to identify potential for digital innovation based on collaborative knowledge transfer between SMEs and universities. This study provides a better understanding of the makeup and effectiveness of some of the existing digital innovation models and frameworks.