Barriers to Enterprise Innovation: A Literatures Review

TLDR: In this paper, the authors find that innovation barriers have a negative impact on innovation activities, but less research focuses on how to effectively mitigate innovation barriers, such as external knowledge acquisition, external knowledge search and external collaboration.

Abstract: Identifying the enterprises’ innovation barriers and researching on the impact of innovation barriers on innovation activities are of great significance for enterprises to adopt appropriate measures and the government to introduce efficient innovation policies. The current related literature mainly focuses on the innovation barriers from three aspects: identification and classification of innovation barriers, the determinants of innovation barriers, and the impact of innovation barriers on innovation activities. Our study finds that innovation barriers have a negative impact on innovation activities, but less research focuses on how to effectively mitigate innovation barriers. Enterprise innovation activities (such as external knowledge acquisition, external knowledge search and external collaboration) play an important role in overcoming barriers to innovation.