Hidden Strategy of Open Intellectual Capital Acquisition: A Case Study of Innovative, Software-Developing SMEs

Existing studies into information technology (IT) agile project management (APM) focus on describing the mechanism of how this process should be executed. The distinctive feature of the extensive literature on the subject is the consensus on the events and stages included in APM processes and maintaining discipline in their execution. However, a study of open intellectual capital acquisition (OICA) in innovative small and medium-sized enterprises in Poland that develop software (2009–2023) reveals the presence of an OICA stage in the events of the IT APM process, which is missing in the existing literature on the subject. The current study reveals that OICA is based on strategy. This strategy is inherently incorporated into the mechanism of APM. Moreover, the study shows that artificial intelligence and machine learning are increasingly used in this strategy, which makes it innovative. This text aims to present the results of the study, focusing on identifying and describing the strategy of OICA as an integral component of the IT APM process.