Innovation in a company's survival is an indispensable element that must adapt to new markets and persist to enhance its competitiveness. These corporate innovations are shifting from traditional closed innovations to open innovations in terms of cross-corporate cooperation, and open innovations are also shifting from existing technical collaborations to non-technical innovations such as design and marketing. In particular, as convergence and complexity between technical and design elements have recently emerged, design innovation in open innovation is highlighted as a major factor that can lead the market by maximizing the creativity can lead the market.
As open innovation has emerged as an indispensable element in recent corporate innovation strategies, many existing studies on open innovation have been conducted. It ranges from case analysis of domestic and foreign companies that have succeeded in open innovation to empirical analysis of open innovation as a result of companies. However, there is a limitation in existing studies on open innovation that the view of open innovation is focused solely on innovation of technical components.
In this study, we analyze the situation in which open innovation is not only focused on existing technological elements but also on design elements through design R&D as the spread of open innovation, and try to derive new innovation measures that can achieve new added value through the combination of existing technological and design elements. To find out the results of open innovation from a design perspective, we also demonstrated the direct performance of 156 companies that benefited from the design development support project for small and medium-sized enterprises in 2018 and 2019 and their impact on the Jeollabuk-do design industry.
The results of the empirical analysis are summarized as follows. The sales and employment of small and medium-sized companies that benefited from the design and development support project increased more than before receiving support, and the satisfaction of the project was analyzed higher as the project progressed. Since the implementation of the support project, the number of design companies in Jeollabuk-do has increased every year, and the utilization of design, collaboration with design companies, and investment costs in design have increased every year.
The policy proposals of this study are as follows. Through qualitative growth of design companies and fostering professionals, the results and success stories of open design innovation should be shared to foster and enhance the design industry of Jeollabuk-do by spreading design awareness and creating design demand in Jeollabuk-do. Jeonbuk Design Center should also be certified as a regional design center to enhance the competitiveness of Jeonbuk Design Center by converging the design industry with Jeollabuk-do's flagship industry and city-county specialized industry.
The limitations of this study are as follows. This study requires additional research on whether SMEs' performance has changed due to other factors, and it is difficult to reflect accurate performance in a short period of one year after the government's support policy ended.
Therefore, in the future, support projects based on companies' stages and characteristics will also need to be investigated and researched, and additional research will be needed in various fields, including design support projects of other institutions in Jeollabuk-do. In addition, in terms of performance analysis, performance analysis that reflects various factors such as marketing methods, distribution structures, cost reduction, and product production structures will be required. In terms of performance measurement, research on long-term performance measurements as well as short-term performance measurements after collaboration with support and design firms should also be conducted.