NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT (NPD) SERVICE SUPPLIERS IN OPEN INNOVATION PRACTICES: PROCESSES AND ORGANIZATION FOR KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE AND INTEGRATION

Abstract

New Product Development (NPD) service providers have assumed a prominent role in enabling a more widespread use of Open Innovation strategies, thanks to their ability to acquire, recombine and sell specialized knowledge and technologies. This paper adopts the point of view of the NPD service provider to investigate the approaches it can employ in order to favor knowledge exchange with its clients, throughout the service delivery process. The research relies on a multiple case study, which focuses on three collaborative projects undertaken by a worldwide leading provider of NPD services with some of its most important clients. The analysis reveals some important findings. First, the NPD service provider uses standard approaches, both as regards process and organizational variables, to address two critical barriers toward a successful completion of the inter-organizational relationship: the tacit nature of the knowledge to be exchanged and the difficulties in predicting the content of collaboration activities. Second, in implementing these approaches, the NPD service provider takes into account the distinctive characteristics of each client and the peculiarities of the specific collaborative project. Besides providing several managerial insights that will be useful for managers working in NPD service providers, the paper contributes to the academic debate, e.g., investigating the importance of trust in successful inter-organizational knowledge exchange processes.