On Open Innovation Research Articles

The open innovation research landscape: established perspectives and emerging themes across different levels of analysis

This paper provides an overview of the main perspectives and themes emerging in research on open innovation (OI). The paper is the result of a collaborative process among several OI scholars – having a common basis in the recurrent Professional Development Workshop on ‘Researching Open Innovation’ at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. In this paper, we present opportunities for future research on OI, organised at different levels of analysis. We discuss some of the contingencies at these different levels, and argue that future research needs to study OI – originally an organisational-level phenomenon – across multiple levels of analysis. While our integrative framework allows comparing, contrasting and integrating various perspectives at different levels of analysis, further theorising will be needed to advance OI research. On this basis, we propose some new research categories as well as questions for future research – particularly those that span across research domains that have so far developed in isolation.

Which factors hinder the adoption of open innovation in SMEs?

ABSTRACTThe literature on open innovation (OI) is characterised by studies based both on large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Among all, one of the less explored issues in SMEs is what impedes them to adopt OI. Thus, this paper has the threefold objective to identify which factors hinder the adoption of OI in SMEs, to investigate if different behaviours exist among SMEs in relation to these factors, and to understand if the same factors effectively influence the level of adoption of OI. Based on a survey on 157 Italian SMEs, we identified four main barriers (namely, ‘knowledge’, ‘collaboration’, ‘organisational’, and ‘financial and strategic’) and three profiles of firms, different in terms of innovativeness of the industries they belong to (knowledge intensive, medium-innovative, and less innovative) and hampering factors perceived (‘knowledge’, ‘financial and strategic’, and ‘collaboration’ and ‘organisational’ barriers). Moreover, we found that some of these factors effectively impede the adoption of the paradigm.

A Bibliometric Review of Open Innovation: Setting a Research Agenda

Through an objective, systematic, and comprehensive review of the literature on open innovation (OI), this article identifies gaps in existing research, and provides recommendations on how hitherto unused or underused organizational, management, and marketing theories can be applied to advance the field. This study adopts a novel approach by combining two complementary bibliometric methods of co‐citation analysis and text mining of 321 journal articles on OI that enables a robust empirical analysis of the intellectual streams and key concepts underpinning OI. Results reveal that researchers do not sufficiently draw on theoretical perspectives external to the field to examine multiple facets of OI. Research also seems confined to innovation‐specific journals with its focus restricted to a select few OI issues, thereby exerting limited influence on the wider business community. This study reveals three distinct areas within OI research: (1) firm‐centric aspects of OI, (2) management of OI networks, and (3) role of users and communities in OI. Thus far, studies have predominantly investigated the firm‐centric aspects of OI, with a particular focus on the role of knowledge, technology, and R&D from the innovating firm's perspective, while the other two areas remain relatively under‐researched. Further gaps in the literature emerge that present avenues for future research, namely to: (1) develop a more comprehensive understanding of OI by including diverse perspectives (users, networks, and communities), (2) direct increased attention to OI strategy formulation and implementation, and (3) enhance focus on customer co‐creation and conceptualize “open service innovation.” Marketing (e.g., service‐dominant logic), organizational behavior (e.g., communities of practice), and management (e.g., dynamic capabilities) offer suitable theoretical lenses and/or concepts to address these gaps.

Open innovation in SMEs: a systematic literature review

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the extant literature on open innovation (OI) in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).Design/methodology/approach– An examination of the literature was undertaken to review the studies on open innovation in SMEs. The selected articles were classified in different themes and analyzed accordingly.Findings– The study finds that adopting OI by SMEs improves their overall innovation performance. The authors found that a larger number of studies are based on a quantitative approach. Surprisingly, unlike in many other disciplines, scholars of North America have had a limited contribution. European scholars, along with some scholars from Korea and China, have been active in developing this field of OI in SMEs.Research limitations/implications– This study provides theoretical and managerial implications. With thematic analysis, along with identifying gaps, conflations, and contradictions in the literature, this study proposes an agenda for future exploration.Originality/value– The value of this study lies in the integration of the limited but scattered studies on OI in SMEs.

Let’s talk about innovation

PurposeIMP researchers have shown interest in how innovations result from interaction among companies, while, and in parallel, there has been an increased focus on open innovation (OI) during the past decade. OI depicts how companies source, spin-out, and collaborate on innovation. This paper describes and discusses whether and how IMP and OI researchers acknowledge and build on each other’s work; and whether and how ideas provided by IMP and OI, respectively, create a fit to expand the exchange of knowledge between IMP and OI.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on a citation analysis focussing on whether the OI literature refers to IMP research, and whether or not the IMP literature refers to OI research. The paper also compares OI and IMP to discover potentials for knowledge exchange between them through discussing similarities, complementarities, and contradictions.FindingsThe paper points out that while IMP researchers have started to show interest in OI, OI research does not refer to IMP. As such, OI research remains more company-centric in its discussions. IMP provides tools and models to capture the OI phenomenon specifically related to collaborative OI, while OI offers interesting thought for the capture of transaction-based innovation processes and their management.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to previous research through linking together OI and IMP research. This is important for several reasons, including the ability to enhance knowledge in each domain, critically discuss and relate various research domains and their underpinnings, and expand ideas developed in one research domain to another.

AN INDIVIDUAL PERSPECTIVE ON OPEN INNOVATION CAPABILITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF HAUTE CUISINE

Previous research on open innovation (OI) has primarily focused on the organisational level of R&D intensive industries. With this paper, we contribute to research on the individual level of analysis by analysing specific perspectives in the context of creative industries. Our study is based on 36 interviews with Haute cuisine chefs in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland listed in the 2012 Michelin Guide. Building on the OI capability concept, our results demonstrate that chefs use absorptive and desorptive capacity (AC, DC) as means to generate and market culinary innovations, respectively. Moreover, we found that chefs almost exclusively rely on their own inventive and innovative capabilities in the early stages of the culinary innovation process. In subsequent phases, however, chefs increasingly integrate other sources such as employees, suppliers, and guests. Our study contributes to the literature in two ways. First, we research the individual level within the OI process, and second, we provide insight into OI practices in the creative industries.

Open Innovation Implementation in the Service Industry: Exploring Practices, Sub-practices and Contextual

This paper addresses a major gap in reported research on open innovation (OI) literature: How do service firms adopt open innovation? This research focuses on data from eighteen service SMEs in Belgium from high-tech and knowledge-intensive service industries. Based on analysis, we find new insights regarding open innovation practices (i.e., inbound and outbound) and sub-practices (i.e., acquiring, sourcing, selling and revealing) for service firms. More specifically, the study showed that service SMEs are more inclined to use inbound practices due to reasons associated with firm size, industry, and knowledge intensity in the market, whereas the decision about which sub-practice to adopt seems to be strongly influenced by the type of actor, the firm’s vulnerability and internal managerial skills, and the existence of complementarities. Thus, we contribute to OI literature as well as capability literature through providing initial insights regarding the adoption of OI by service firms.

Open innovation practices in SMEs and large enterprises

Few studies on open innovation (OI) address OI practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and how their use of OI and the resulting benefits differ from those of large enterprises. The lack of resources in SMEs to engage in looking outward is said to be a barrier to OI, but at the same time this shortage is cited as a motive for looking beyond organisational boundaries for technological knowledge. We investigate how OI dimensions impact the innovative performance of SMEs in comparison to large companies. The key finding is that the effects of OI practices in SMEs often differ from those in large firms. SMEs are more effective in using different OI practices simultaneously when they introduce new products on the market, whereas this is less the case for large firms. Turnover from new products in SMEs is driven by intellectual property protection mechanisms, while large firms in this case benefit more from their search strategies.

How do large multinational companies implement open innovation?

This paper addresses a major gap in reported research on open innovation (OI): how do companies implement open innovation? To answer this question a sample of 43 cross-sector firms were reviewed for their OI implementation approaches. The study analyzed how firms moved from practising closed to open innovation, classifying the adoption path according to the impetus for the adoption of the OI paradigm and the coordination of the OI implementation. The way firms adopted OI was found to vary according to (1) their innovation requirements, (2) the timing of the implementation and (3) their organizational culture.

Editorial: SPECIAL ISSUE ON OPEN INNOVATION AND THE INTEGRATION OF SUPPLIERS — PART TWO

International Journal of Innovation ManagementVol. 15, No. 01, pp. v-vii (2011) No AccessEditorial: SPECIAL ISSUE ON OPEN INNOVATION AND THE INTEGRATION OF SUPPLIERS — PART TWOALEXANDER BREMALEXANDER BREM Search for more papers by this author https://doi.org/10.1142/S1363919611003234Cited by:2 Next AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack CitationsRecommend to Library ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmail Remember to check out the Most Cited Articles! Be inspired by these New Titles in Business and Management FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsCited By 2Collaboration for R&D Projects between the Industry and External Agents: Evidence from Manufacturing Companies in PeruJuan Jesus Arenas and Domingo Gonzalez25 March 2019 | Latin American Business Review, Vol. 20, No. 1Recommendations for supplier innovation evaluation from literature and practiceStefan Winter and Rainer Lasch6 Jun 2016 | International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 36, No. 6 Recommended Vol. 15, No. 01 Metrics History PDF download

Determinants and archetype users of open innovation

Extant research on open innovation (OI) offers no systematic insight of how and why firms differ regarding the extent to which they conduct OI activities. Whereas past theoretical contributions have focused on explaining the externalisation of R&D activities as a result of firm‐external factors, we focus on explaining this externalisation as a result of firm‐internal weaknesses, specifically, impediments to innovation. Using the exploration–exploitation dichotomy as our theoretical framework, we develop hypotheses on how impediments to innovation influence the breadth and depth of OI. We then test these hypotheses by using an exceptionally large and detailed data set to estimate population‐averaged panel models. Our results provide support for most of the hypothesised relationships. Further, they allow to identify four ‘archetypes’ of firms that differ significantly regarding the breadth and depth of OI and the importance of impediments. Finally, we discuss the significance of these findings for both academics and managers.