Open and closed innovation – different innovation cultures for different strategies

Abstract

Although strategies, processes, or the role of business models have been addressed in the open innovation literature, the people side of the equation – i.e., the underlying innovation culture – has been neglected so far. Whereas cultural requirements of open innovation have been mentioned, such as the need to overcome the not-invented-here (NIH) syndrome, there exists, to the best of our knowledge, no study that empirically examines open innovation cultures. We attempt to fill this research gap by focusing on innovation cultures within three business units (two follow a closed and one follows an open innovation approach) of a leading multinational company within the specialty chemicals industry. Employing an overall sample of 109 respondents, we focus on the cultural dimensions of NIH syndrome, risk-taking, and management support of innovative behaviour and provide first evidence of cultural differences between Open and Closed Innovation units.