Book excerpt: Innovation studies and partnering/collaborative alliances are rapidly growing areas of interest. Originally combining the two areas, this book examines the role of business partnering as a pathway to innovation for small and medium enterprises – SMEs. This text outlines global and regional trends, focusing in particular on the role of Poland and Eastern Europe as an emerging region for new innovative ideas, how innovation is promoted in the United States, and how it is facilitated in Japan. It assesses the reasons why American SMEs are significantly ahead of their European counterparts in the fields of research and development investment and innovation, and demonstrates how business partnering can assist in increasing research and development investment, profit, finding new suppliers and aiding growth. In addition, the book shows how business partners can cut the costs of doing research for innovation and analyzes the threat that poorly constructed and over-burdensome regulation and bureaucracy pose to innovation. This book is a timely contribution to the literature on both innovation and business partnering in Japan, Europe and the United States.