Open Innovation Activities Research Articles

Determining the antecedents of digital transformation and performance: the roles of social capital, open social innovation, absorptive capacity and government support

PurposeOpen social innovation has become a critical practice for firms competing in volatile markets. Simultaneously, the rise of digital technologies has opened opportunities across sectors, making digital transformation a key driver of corporate change. This study examines the impact of internal and external factors, such as social capital, absorptive capacity and government support, in facilitating open social innovation and digital transformation activities, which may ultimately enhance business performance.Design/methodology/approachData were collected through a questionnaire survey distributed to management members across various enterprises in a wide range of industries in Vietnam. A total of 289 valid responses were obtained, and the research hypotheses were tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling.FindingsFirst, open social innovation positively influences digital transformation, with absorptive capacity mediating this relationship. Second, social capital directly affects open social innovation and indirectly impacts digital transformation through open social innovation. Third, digital transformation directly enhances business performance, while absorptive capacity indirectly influences business performance through digital transformation. Finally, government support directly impacts business performance and indirectly influences digital transformation via open social innovation.Originality/valueBy integrating social capital theory and the resource-based view, this research significantly advances the understanding of the complex relationships among government support, social capital, open social innovation, digital transformation, absorptive capacity and business performance.

Examining the impact of crowdsourcing and open innovation from the emerging country perspective

PurposeThis study examines the impact of crowdsourcing and open innovation (CSOI) in an emerging country like India. The study also investigates the moderating effects of technology support (TES) on improving firm performance and socio-economic conditions (SEC) in emerging countries.Design/methodology/approachA theoretical model has been developed with the help of stakeholder theory, dynamic capability view (DCV) and existing literature. Later, the theoretical model is validated using the partial least squares structural equation modelling technique to analyse 303 respondents from India.FindingsThe results of this study demonstrate that CSOI has a significant and positive role in the SEC in emerging countries, showing the emergence of an economy close to stakeholder capitalism or the Francesco Pope one. The study also finds that TES significantly moderates successful crowdsourcing practices and open innovation activities, influencing sustainability-related factors.Practical implicationsThis study shows that CSOI practices can influence the SECs in emerging countries by improving intermediate sustainability-related contextual issues like environmental, social and economic factors. This implies that CSOI are relevant in emerging countries to ensure the socio-economic growth of the society where so many constraints prevail.Originality/valueThis is a preliminary study on CSOI practices that firms in emerging countries follow. Using stakeholder theory and DCV to develop the unique conceptual model is essential to the body of knowledge. The inclusion of moderators like TES is a unique value proposition. Moreover, the proposed theoretical model has a high predictive power, making the model impactful and novel.

Does the impact of open innovation depend on contextual factors? A case of the Korean biopharmaceutical industry.

Investments in the strategic development of the biopharmaceutical industry are increasing in both developed and developing countries. The biopharmaceutical industry is a technology-intensive industry where securing original technology and intellectual property rights is important. The role of open innovation is becoming more important due to the enormous research and development (R&D) funds and long development period in the early development process, and open innovation (OI) is becoming more important in the corporate world. Many empirical studies have been conducted on the impact on performance. However, the contextual factors that affect the relationship between OI activities and innovation performance have received relatively little attention, and studies from the perspective of developing countries catching up with developed countries are even rarer. Accordingly, this study examined the moderating effects (government R&D support, absorptive capacity, and alliance management capacity) that affect open innovation and innovation performance in the biopharmaceutical industry using data from Korea, one of the most representative latecomer countries in the biopharmaceutical industry. The basic information, OI activities, and patent achievements of Korean biopharmaceutical firms were collected and organized into a database. Samples with missing or incorrect information were excluded, and 527 firms were analyzed. Negative binomial regression analysis was performed considering the characteristics of patent performance, which is the dependent variable, and a time lag of one to two years was assumed considering the time required to generate results. OI in the form of technological cooperation, rather than technology purchasing, has a positive effect on patent performance. Meanwhile, the greater the absorptive capacity and government R&D support, the greater the positive impact of technological cooperation on patent performance. Conversely, the greater the alliance management capacity, the greater the positive impact of technological cooperation. These results indicate that the impact of OI activities on technological innovation performance may vary depending on context.

The effects of the functional and geographical breadth of collaborations on radical innovation performance: the moderating role of firm size

PurposeDue to the constantly increasing competitiveness along with the complexity of knowledge, firms perceive collaboration as a key strategy that preserves firms' radical innovation performance. In this context, this paper aims to examine how firms’ partners’ diversity in open innovation activities influences the development of radical innovations, critical for social development. In particular, this study analyzes how the functional and geographical breadth of the firm’s collaboration portfolio affects its radical innovation performance. Furthermore, it also explores the role of firm size as a moderator in the relationships proposed.Design/methodology/approachThis research employs panel data analysis, using a sample of 4,677 Spanish firms, with data sourced from the PITEC database.FindingsThe results of this study show that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between the functional and the geographical breadth of collaborations and the firms’ radical innovation performance. Moreover, this study finds partial support for the moderating role of firm size, in the sense that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large firms vary in their optimal number of diversity of partners.Originality/valueThis research provides a better understanding on how partners’ functional and geographical diversity, along with organizational characteristics such as firm size, affect how firms benefit from collaboration for innovation. This study shows that both SMEs and large firms experience diminishing returns when their collaboration networks become overly diverse in pursuit of radical innovation, due to increased costs. However, in SMEs, the turning point occurs at a later stage, consistent with the idea that small firms need broader functional networks to access complementary and novel resources they usually lack.

Do relationships matter?—Director networks and corporate open innovation

This paper examines the impact of a firm's important social relationship, director network, on its open innovation. By matching the director network data of Chinese A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2018 with manually collected data on joint patent applications, we conduct an empirical study and explore the possible influence mechanisms. The results show that the director network has a significant positive impact on corporate open innovation. The conclusion still holds after endogeneity treatment, propensity score matching estimation, and other robustness tests. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that director networks promote more R&D cooperation among firms than firm-university and firm-research institution R&D cooperation; director networks have a more positive impact on the R&D cooperation activities of non-state-owned firms compared to state-owned firms; moreover, in terms of the type of director networks, independent director networks have a significantly higher positive impact on firms' open innovation than non-independent director networks. It is further found that director networks can facilitate firms' participation in R&D collaborative activities by alleviating firms' financing constraints and reducing transaction costs. This paper enriches the research related to social relations expanding firm boundaries. The findings provide some references for firms to further develop open innovation activities and the construction of innovation systems.

The roles of entrepreneurial orientation and government support in the open innovation of manufacturing firms: empirical evidence from South Korea

PurposeThis study investigates the effect of entrepreneurial orientation and government support on the innovation openness of South Korean manufacturing firms. By compartmentalizing entrepreneurial orientation and government support, this study seeks to elucidate their effects on the breadth and depth of firms' knowledge searches.Design/methodology/approachThe study utilizes Poisson regression analysis with empirical data from 2,353 South Korean manufacturing firms collected from Korean Innovation Survey data.FindingsAnalysis reveals nuanced influences of various factors on firms' open innovation activities. Innovativeness positively affects knowledge search breadth and depth, highlighting the role of innovation-oriented processes, while competitive aggressiveness influences depth, thereby underscoring the pursuit of specialized knowledge acquisition. Proactiveness positively affects breadth but negatively affects depth, suggesting the importance of maintaining broad perspectives. Government support scope positively affects both breadth and depth, reflecting the significance of external support in encouraging inclusive knowledge exploration. The importance of government support positively influences depth, emphasizing its vital role in establishing collaborative relationships to enhance in-depth knowledge acquisition.Originality/valueThis study provides novel insights by exploring the nuanced implementation of open innovation in latecomer economies, especially South Korea, which experienced rapid economic development by leveraging innovation. The identification of specific factors influencing knowledge search breadth and depth contributes to the literature on open innovation by providing strategic guidelines for firms and policymakers. This practical implications of this study suggest that firms should align their strategies with entrepreneurial orientation while leveraging pertinent government support.

Taking, Giving, or Matching Resources? How Theories of the Firm Inform Open Innovation Activities

Taking, Giving, or Matching Resources? How Theories of the Firm Inform Open Innovation Activities

The mediating role of knowledge management processes on the relationship between knowledge-based HRM practices and open innovation in SMEs

Purpose Studies have demonstrated the role of human resource management (HRM) practices and knowledge management processes (KMPs) in innovative performance. However, there is limited focus on the role of HRM practices in facilitating KMPs in organizations, most especially in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are constrained by lack of adequate resources, making them dependent on external sources of knowledge. In addressing this gap, this study aims to investigate the link between knowledge-based HRM practices and open innovation (OI) activities through KMPs in Jordanian SMEs. Design/methodology/approach Following the survey method, 500 manufacturing SMEs in Jordan were randomly selected as participants, with a total of 335 responses collated. The structural equation modeling technique, based on AMOS, was used in analyzing the collected data. Findings The findings revealed a significant positive relationship between knowledge-based HRM practices and OI. In addition, KMPs was determined to be a significant mediator of the relationship between knowledge -based HRM practices and OI. Originality/value The study contributes to the literature by emphasizing the organizational elements that boost OI in SMEs. The findings hold significant implications for enhancing the performance of innovativeness, competitiveness and the socioeconomic advancement in the SMEs sector.

Engaging with startups through corporate accelerators: the case of H‐FARM's White Label Accelerator

Corporate accelerators have emerged in recent years as an innovation mechanism that builds bridges between corporations and startups. Through inbound Open Innovation (OI) activities, established firms open their innovation processes to startups to acquire their knowledge. Previous research has focused either on independent accelerators or on corporate accelerator programs that an established firm operates internally. The literature on how accelerators orchestrate different OI practices is sparse, yet large corporations are forging ahead with corporate accelerators. Furthermore, new corporate accelerator models have emerged, rendering the corporate accelerator phenomenon more heterogenous. In this paper, adopting an OI lens, we explore the White Label Accelerator (WLA), a recent model in which an independent accelerator manages the program on behalf of a single corporate organization. Through an in‐depth case study of Technogym Wellness Accelerator, a pioneer and most important WLA in Italy set up by H‐Farm on behalf of Technogym, a large fitness and wellness company, we investigate how such accelerators function as an OI tool. We found four key dimensions that enable successful outcomes. In particular, the importance of entrepreneurial alertness as a key driver for the effective exploitation of intellectual property represents a significant finding. Our research contributes to OI and entrepreneurial finance literature and provides insightful managerial implications to corporate accelerator stakeholders and startups' managers.

Collaboration of corporates with coworking spaces: different pathways to develop innovation capabilities

Although academia has witnessed increasing interest in coworking spaces over the past decade, the corporate perspective on utilizing such spaces has not been thoroughly studied. This paper investigates corporate goals, activities, and outcomes of corporate–coworking collaboration by examining 11 different cases in which corporates engage in coworking spaces. We find that, based on their goals, corporates choose different collaboration pathways to enhance their innovation capabilities. We call these pathways explorer, startup hunter, implementer, and transformer. Coworking spaces play an essential role by hosting and orchestrating key open innovation actors, resources, and activities such as scanning, scouting, community building, co‐development, and learning. They are emerging as an open innovation platform that can trigger sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities of corporates. Our study contributes to the innovation management and the coworking space literature and offers practical implications for both corporates and coworking spaces.

Exploratory and exploitative linkages and innovative activity in the offshore renewable energy sector

PurposeThis paper examines the relationship between open innovation (measured by exploratory and exploitative linkages) and firm-level innovative activity in the offshore renewable energy (ORE) sector.Design/methodology/approachA unique, purpose-built survey that targeted firms operating in the ORE sector and its supply chain was used. The data provides novel insights into the research activities and networking capabilities of an industry in its infant stages of development. Regression models are used to estimate the relationship between firm-level external linkages and innovative activity.FindingsExploratory linkages are positively related to more innovative activity. This relationship is subject to diminishing returns, distinguishing the ORE sector from other sectors. Collaborating with suppliers and accessing scientific journals are conducive to research and development (R&D) activity and process innovation, whilst collaborating with customers is associated with the decision to introduce new products and processes.Originality/valueThis study provides evidence of a positive, but curvilinear, relationship between external knowledge linkages and innovative activity, adding novel insights into the relationship between open innovation (OI) strategies, research and innovation outcomes for firms predominantly in the introductory stages of the technological life cycle with limited commercialisation experience. The nuanced finding that specific linkages matter for certain research and innovation (R&I) outcomes adds deeper complexity to March’s (1991) framework, where tailoring certain exploratory or exploitative linkages to specific innovation activities is important.

Open innovation, overseas business income and the mediating effect of environmental, social and governance

AbstractWithin the context of the ‘go global’ strategy, for enabling enterprises to effectively form open innovation strategies to enhance overseas business income and assume environmental, social and governance (ESG) responsibilities and to explore the importance and operational mechanisms of ESG, this paper adopts a three‐step method to analyse the panel data of Chinese multinational enterprises from 2011 to 2019. The results indicate that adopting open innovation can improve overseas business income and environmental and social performance. The environment and society are two critical intermediary channels for the impact mechanisms of open innovation on overseas business income. Based on these findings, we make some recommendations for enterprises and external investors. This research also expands the current understanding of the correlation between open innovation, ESG and overseas operation activities, providing evidence on open innovation strategy for managers and verifying the vital role of ESG in enterprise operations.

Productivity of the Korean Biopharmaceutical Industry: Exploring the Effect of Business Model and Open Innovation

The biopharmaceutical industry in Korea is considered a key strategic industry following the semiconductor industry. However, success in the biopharmaceutical industry depends on the outcome of research and development processes that require long periods and substantial investment, resulting in a success rate of only around 2.5%–4% for new drug development. Consequently, rational strategic choices, such as determining key capabilities to pursue business, deciding where to position within the value chain and identifying collaboration partners and strategies, are more crucial in the biopharmaceutical industry compared to other industries. In this study, we divided Korean biopharmaceutical companies into research and development groups and Integrated groups, which perform both research and production, and compared their productivity using the meta-frontier methodology to verify the significance of technology gap ratio (TGR) values between groups. We also investigated the influence of open innovation activities, including the type, partners and timing, on the TGR of each group with Tobit analysis. The investigation revealed that productivity and its influencing elements varied depending on the business model. This finding suggests that this information can be utilised to develop efficient industrial policies.

Exploring smallholder farmers' open innovation capability: A structural equation modeling approach

This study determined the capability of small vegetable farmers in the Philippines to participate in an open innovation activity. Open innovation offers numerous advantages over the closed system and adopting it provides numerous benefits for the small farmers and the agriculture sector. Using knowledge generation, conversion, and sharing as the base framework, this study is premised on the idea that open innovation is facilitated by increased access to new knowledge. Data from a survey of 266 small vegetable farmers in Region IVA of the Philippines was analyzed using descriptive statistics and partial least square structural equation modeling. The results show that vegetable farmers can generate tacit knowledge and convert it into explicit knowledge. This, together with their innovation network, positive attitude towards innovation, and financial support have a positive effect on the farmers’ ability to participate in open innovation. Considering these, the innovation platform approach can be used to leverage the knowledge process and innovation networks to enhance the collaborative innovation process.

How Information Technology Overcomes Deficiencies for Innovation in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Closed Innovation vs. Open Innovation

Innovation is vital for the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, SMEs face deficiencies that hinder their innovation output. This study examines how information technology (IT) helps SMEs address two salient deficiencies: technological deficiency (deficiency in internal technical knowledge and skills) and government support deficiency (deficiency in favorable government policies and incentives). Our findings suggest that SME managers can achieve greater innovation output by orienting their IT-enabled innovation efforts in an open or closed manner to address specific deficiencies. They can address technological deficiency by focusing their IT efforts on promoting innovation within the firm, that is, using IT to support closed innovation. In contrast, SMEs that face government support deficiency should give preference to IT Use for Open Innovation Activities to collaborate with external constituents such as customers and suppliers. Furthermore, because of the emergence of digital platforms (e.g., crowdsourcing), managers may be overly biased toward the use of open innovation. Our results suggest that both open and closed IT-enabled innovation have value. We exhort SME managers not to disregard either form of IT-enabled innovation but rather to tailor their approach to suit their organizational context based on specific deficiencies that their firm faces.

A microfoundational view of the interplay between open innovation and a firm's strategic agility

Open innovation can support firms looking to deploy strategic agility through product innovations during periods of market and technological change. However, existing research lacks a comprehensive understanding of the microfoundations that underlie strategic agility in the context of open innovation. We address this gap using an in-depth analysis of a firm's open innovation activities in support of new product development (NPD). Our analysis reveals that open innovation can help leverage NPD processes to drive technological innovations in response to changing market conditions. Under such circumstances, open innovation enables firms to deploy strategic agility by continually developing the product portfolio. Our study reveals six mechanisms that enable three mutually complementary practices of agility: knowledge-based agility at the firm-environment interface, behavioural agility in the firm's decision-making process, and organisational agility in the internal NPD process. We theorise the interplay between the mechanisms that constitute each practice and, in doing so, shed light on how they contribute to firm-level strategic agility.

A mediated moderated analysis of knowledge management and stakeholder relationships between open innovation and performance of entrepreneurial firms

Even though entrepreneurial firms make substantial contributions to both domestic and global economies and innovations, there is disagreement in the literature regarding how open innovation affects these firms' ability to succeed. The current research is an attempt to address the gaps by analyzing the intricacies and dynamics of entrepreneurial firms’ involvement in Open Innovation. Furthermore, the impact on performance is examined from a knowledge perspective. In Jordanian context, this study analyzed the link between stakeholder interactions, knowledge management, open innovation, and the performance of entrepreneurial firms. The findings demonstrated that open innovation activities are statistically significant to the overall performance of entrepreneurial firms. However, since it has an unintentional detrimental effect over the performance of entrepreneurial firms in Jordan, the moderating effect of stakeholder relations and the mediation effect of knowledge management has been analyzed. The moderating role of stakeholder relationships has been proven statistically which enriched the theoretical foundations of RBV and contingency theory by adding stakeholders’ theory into the combination of the two theories, at the end limitations and guidelines for future research along with practical implications are emphasized.

Internationalising high–tech SMEs: Advancing a new perspective of open innovation

Choosing a foreign market entry strategy is known to be essential for firm internationalisation yet there is very little focus on the role, purpose, and value of open innovation for internationalising high–tech SMEs. A review of the international business, international entrepreneurship and international marketing literature combined with a bibliometric mapping of 2501 articles on firm internationalisation, suggests that research does not readily associate open innovation and the internationalisation of high–tech SMEs. This is regardless of open innovation's activities that can span over a firm's immediate geographical space. Thus, this study introduces new theoretical explanations and a midrange open innovation theory to advance open innovation as an alternative foreign market entry strategy especially for internationalising high–tech SMEs. This has theoretical and practical implications for academics, international business managers, and practitioners because it introduces an alternative internationalisation strategy for SMEs.

Inbound open innovation in SMEs: A microfoundations perspective of dynamic capabilities

This study investigates how the technological capabilities of SMEs influence their inbound open innovation (OI) activities. We investigate the heterogeneity of OI strategies by examining SMEs' profiles. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities theory, we focus on the sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities of firms. We empirically analyze the data using a configurational approach to validate the taxonomy of inbound OI. Based on a sample of 634 SMEs in Canada, the results confirm that the microfoundations perspective is an appropriate framework for capturing SMEs' heterogeneity in terms of characteristics and openness. Overall, we found a positive relationship between the sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities. Surprisingly, some conventional SMEs capabilities such as internal R&D activities are not associated with openness. We discuss these results along with their theoretical and practical implications.

The impact of forum content on data science open innovation performance: A system dynamics-based causal machine learning approach

Open innovation in data science generally takes the form of public competitions where teams exchange messages and solutions by competing and collaborating simultaneously. Team behaviours are widely heterogeneous in terms of the performance of their solutions and the participation in knowledge creation. We present a novel research framework for open innovation by integrating system dynamics and structural topic modelling to extract open factors and adopting a machine learning-based difference-in-differences estimator to understand the impact of team behaviour on their performance using data from Kaggle's competition. Our results identify four team behaviour categories—active, learner, lurker, and passive— in data science open innovation competitions which depend on the performance of their solutions and actions related to posting and reading messages in the forum. Furthermore, the activities of model evaluation, community support, and business understanding are the top three most positive and significant factors affecting team performance. Our research contributes to the literature by highlighting the value of forum feedback and exploring the data science activities in the forum discussion, in relation to innovation performance, to enrich the empirical understanding of open innovation. Research implications for researchers and practitioners participating in, organising, and supporting data science open innovation activities are provided.