Open Innovation in R&amp;D

Bassem E Maamari,Alfred Osta

doi:10.4018/ijkm.296261

Abstract

Breakthrough innovations are crucial drivers of economic progress, often depending on external knowledge sources to complement internal knowledge. Co-patenting is one way to achieve this by implementing open innovation within research and development. The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of co-patenting on breakthrough innovations in the pharmaceutical industry. A research question is tested empirically using an archival dataset comprising 866 patents in Pharma. The findings show that co-patenting has a significant positive impact on breakthrough innovations. Short of previous investigation, this paper provides new empirical insights on the open innovation and co-patenting levels, leading to both academic and practical implications on the field.

Highlights

The fundamental change of today’s globalized business context, where radical innovations are key drivers of economic progress (Sorescu et al, 2003), is compelling organizations to raise their innovation performance and production frontiers (Rothaermel, 2017; Kovacs, Marullo, Verhoeven, and Van Looy, 2019) towards the implementation of open innovation (OI) within research and development (Inauen and Schenker-Wicki, 2012)
The literature has acknowledged the positive relationship between OI and radical innovation (Inauen et al, 2012), but only few recent studies have contributed to our understanding of the effects of OI on breakthrough innovations (West et al, 2014; Kovacs et al, 2019)
The purpose of our study is to fill this persisting gap, by investigating the impact of co-patenting on breakthrough innovations in the pharmaceutical industry which could be vital to research and development managers

Summary

Introduction

The fundamental change of today’s globalized business context, where radical innovations are key drivers of economic progress (Sorescu et al, 2003), is compelling organizations to raise their innovation performance and production frontiers (Rothaermel, 2017; Kovacs, Marullo, Verhoeven, and Van Looy, 2019) towards the implementation of open innovation (OI) within research and development (Inauen and Schenker-Wicki, 2012). The extant literature on OI stresses on the combination of: (1) the inbound process (in-house exploitation of the outside knowledge), (2) the outbound process Internal knowledge) (Huizingh, 2011), and (3) the coupled processes (combination of inbound and outbound) (Chesbrough and Bogers, 2014). The literature has acknowledged the positive relationship between OI and radical (or breakthrough) innovation (Inauen et al, 2012), but only few recent studies have contributed to our understanding of the effects of OI on breakthrough innovations (West et al, 2014; Kovacs et al, 2019)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion