The purpose of this article is to identify the role start-ups play in the open innovation (OI) context by reviewing the existing body of research. Since the OI literature on young ventures is nascent, a stepwise review approach is applied, using the already more evolved findings of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to derive similarities or differences. The findings indicate that if empirical studies with a similar research focus are conducted, similar results are likely to be obtained in both SMEs and young ventures. Generally, young ventures have a higher application of OI activities compared to large firms as it boosts their innovation performance enabling them to overcome the liability of smallness and newness. Because of this importance, combined with the limited number of quantitative studies available, ongoing research is required to further understand young ventures role in the OI context.

中文翻译：

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（年轻）中小企业的开放式创新

本文的目的是通过回顾现有的研究主体，确定初创企业在开放式创新 (OI) 环境中的作用。由于关于年轻企业的 OI 文献尚处于萌芽阶段，因此采用了逐步审查的方法，利用中小型企业 (SME) 已经更加成熟的调查结果来得出相似之处或不同之处。研究结果表明，如果进行具有相似研究重点的实证研究，中小企业和年轻企业都可能获得相似的结果。一般来说，与大公司相比，年轻的企业对 OI 活动的应用更多，因为它提高了他们的创新绩效，使他们能够克服小而新的责任。由于这一重要性，再加上可用的定量研究数量有限，