Cooperation for innovativeness in SMEs: a taxonomy for cooperation design

Various resource constraints of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) highlight the strategy of cooperation for innovation as it enhances organisations' options and breadth of knowledge sources. Nevertheless, research lacks guidance on why, with whom, and how to cooperate and has so far not provided a comprehensive overview of the characteristics of cooperation to foster SMEs' innovativeness. We build a taxonomy based on deductive and inductive iterations. The taxonomy incorporates insights from literature including information science, innovation management, and organisational science. Further it represents insights from practitioners on cooperation for innovation. Our taxonomy delineates the design options for practitioners and advises that one select organisation-specific parameters. With this taxonomy, we conceptually structure existing research and empower practitioners to analyse their current cooperation projects, reconsider them, and gain knowledge to design new ways of cooperation that best suit their aims.