In the imperial city Beijing at the end of August 2016 has been held 2nd international conference on Multidisciplinary Academic Research & Global Innovation – MARGI 2016, where our professor dr. Borut Likar has been a keynote speaker.
Within the key note speech at the “Multidisciplinary Academic Research & Global Innovation” Conference in Beijing, Prof. Dr. B. Likar presented actual international innovation trends. As one of the key elements, the open innovation paradigm has been emphasised as an efficient link between academia and industry. This is also a good starting point for the state-of-the-art approaches within the developing innovative commercial products and business models. This applies to both large and mature companies as well as SMEs’ and particularly start-ups. In the context of open innovation the OI NET Project and Network as well as its key activities were presented. Last but not least, sustainability and social responsibility aspects were incorporated.
The feedback of international auditory was very positive. Personal contacts with many participants were also established; inter alia with the Faculty from Germany (Hochschule Heilbronn), which opens the possibility of cooperation within post-graduate programs related to open innovation.
During the conference has been presented also research of our master’s graduate and his mentor dr. Likar
At conference, more precisely, within the session Business, Management & Economics Studies has been presented also contribution entitled Strategic Business Alliances as a Bridge towards Open Innovation and Improved Business Performance by Aleksander Strašek, Msc, and his mentor prof. dr. Borut Likar. The research investigates the relations among strategic business alliances (henceforth referred to as the SBA), open innovation and business results in the metal industry in the EU country, namely Slovenia. The results showed that SBA have a significantly strong impact on companies’ open innovation. In addition, the results showed that the majority of business results in companies involved in the SBA were above average compared to the industry sector average values. It may be concluded that the SBA represent an important bridge in the transformation from a closed innovation model to a model of open innovation resulting in better business results.