International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

In the last decades innovations are defined as main priority. Overtime they become an instrument for achieving economic growth and social progress, increasing life standard and aiding in resolving difficult economic problems. The integration, globalization and concurrence define the goal of business organizations to become more innovated, adaptive and flexible in order to never stop developing, gain concurrence advantages and preserve their market share. They always have to take into consideration the constant changing conditions, the turbulent business environment and the increased consumer requirements for end products. In response of this necessity a new innovating model has been created and implanted, better known as open innovation. This relatively new modern concept shows significant potential for developing and by doing this it finds a place in the business practice. By proving its effectiveness through achieving positive results, the open innovation is established as a successful and useful model for innovation, outlining different per spectives and new routes for developing business organizations.

There are six known and generally accepted generations of innovation models. Innovation models transform from simple, linear models, to integrated and networking models that are dynamic and interactive. Each generation of innovation models is presented in this paper with their characteristics as well as drawbacks. The main goal of this paper is to show the transformation path of innovation models and create a framework for a new innovation model on a company level, that could be used by companies to increase their innovative activity and performance. Innovation models define the innovation process and its phases. The framework for the new innovation model includes feedback that was lacking in the first and the second generation of innovation models, but is included in the other generations. It also includes integrated and networking activities which are a characteristic of the third and fourth generation of innovation models. Another component of the model is the usage of information and communications technology (ICT) to facilitate the process of innovation, which is one of the characteristic of the fifth generation of innovation models. It uses a process approach and is based on the open innovation model, which is the signature model from the sixth generation of innovation models and best represents the complex system and characteristic of innovation. The model is supposed to help companies generate innovative ideas and select them through a predetermined process with four main components that act as control points. The purpose of this model is to create a continuous culture for innovation and to set up official procedures. These will help companies to accomplish their innovative ideas and activities.

The open innovation is a concept of growing acceptance in the field of innovation management. It is based on the idea that companies can leverage the knowledge generated externally to improve their innovation performance. Open innovation as a process can promote shorter innovation cycles, increase in industrial research, and better optimization of the resources. However the process of open integration is much harder for implementations in SMEs than larger enterprises. The reasons behind the low integration of the open innovation as a process can be seen in the low capacity of the SMEs to deal with the open innovation process, low awareness of the benefits of the open innovation process, lack of knowledge for the intellectual law and rights, etc. This paper is based on the empirical research on 63 SMEs, in order to determine the factors (reasons) for low implementation of the open innovation process in the SMEs in Republic of Macedonia.