Explicating Open Innovation: Clarifying an Emerging Paradigm for Understanding Innovation

We explore the growth, scope and impact of the academic literature that has arisen since the publication of Open Innovation back in 2003. Moreover, we further clarify and develop the conceptualization of open innovation, which we define as a distributed innovation process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries, using pecuniary and non-pecuniary mechanisms in line with the organization’s business model. On this basis, we then discuss divergent views on open innovation and we call for greater consistency in future research. Next, we address some of the critiques on the notion and development of open innovation as they have emerged in the literature so far. Finally, we consider the progress open innovation research has made, relative to the research agenda identified in Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, and West (2006), and extend the possible research subjects and units of analysis.

Henry Chesbrough, Marcel Bogers

The future of open innovation

Institutional openness is becoming increasingly popular in practice and academia: open innovation, open R&D and open business models. Our special issue builds on the concepts,underlying assumptions and implications discussed in two previous R&D Management special issues (2006, 2009). This overview indicates nine perspectives needed to develop an open innovation theory more fully. It also assesses some of the recent evidence that has come to lighta bout open innovation, in theory and in practice

Oliver Gassmann, Ellen Enkel and Henry Chesbrough

An overview of innovation

Models that depict innovation as a smooth, well-behaved linear process badly misspecify the nature and direction of the causal factors at work. Innovation is complex, uncertain, somewhat disorderly, and subject to changes of many sorts. Innovation is also difficult to measure and demands close coordination of adequate technical knowledge and excellent market judgment in order to satisfy economic, technological, and other types of constraints-all simultaneously. The process of innovation must be viewed as a series of changes in a complete system not only of hardware, but also of market environment, production facilities and knowledge, and the social contexts of the innovation organization.

Stephen J. Kline and Nathan Rosenberg

Technology push and demand pull perspectives in innovation studies: Current findings and future research directions

This study updates the debate on the sources of innovation. Using techniques like factor analysis, multidimensional scaling, and pathfinder analysis, we examine the most influential articles that have dealt with the topic. In addition to confirming the role of technology and demand as sources of innovation, our analysis provides two main findings. The first illustrates how competences enable firms to match technology with demand and capitalize on technology and demand as sources of innovation. The second highlights a distinction between external and internal sources of innovations. The sources of innovation can be purely external or internally generated competences that enable the firm to integrate external knowledge within its boundaries. Our work contributes to the classic debate by providing a more granular understanding of how technology and demand interact. In discussing our findings, we link our framework to strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship studies that expressly call for a better understanding of technology and demand factors in value creation and capture.

Giada Di Stefano, Alfonso Gambardella, Gianmario Verona

The Linear Model of Innovation: The Historical Construction of an Analytical Framework

One of the first (theoretical) frameworks developed in history for understanding science and technology and its relation to the economy has been the linear model of innovation. The model postulated that innovation starts with basic research, followed by applied research and development, and ends with production and diffusion.
The precise source of the linear model remains nebulous, having never been documented. Several authors who have used, improved or criticized the model in the last fifty years rarely acknowledged or cited any original source. The model was usually taken for granted. According to others, however, it comes directly from V. Bush’s Science: The Endless Frontier (1945).
This paper traces the history of the linear model, suggesting that it developed in three steps, corresponding to as many scientific communities looking at science from an analytical point of view. The paper argues that statistics is one of the main reasons explaining why the model is still alive, despite criticisms, alternatives, and having been proclaimed dead.

Innovation and business survival: A long-term approach

This paper explores the influence of innovation on the probability of survival of two hundred top British firms founded throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To this end, we have collected the firms’ significant innovations and classified them by Schumpeterian types, patented and non-patented and domestic and imported.The number of patents registered by the firms throughout their lifetime−a rough measure of their incremental innovation activity–has also been recorded. In addition, twelve control variables−five characteristics of the firms and seven of their business leaders–have been included. Both log-normal and gamma duration model shave been used in the analysis. They have been estimated,firstly for the whole set of firms and, secondly, for the manufacturing and the service firms separately to control for industry differences. The results of the log-normal and gamma estimations are highly coincident, with some nuances. The significant innovations−particularly new processes, non-patented and domestic ones–have been found to positively influence the probability of business survival. The number of patent applications seems to increase the survival probability of the manufacturing firms, but not of the service ones. Among the control variables, the firm’s size, its international dimension, and the age of the business leader at entry seem to be the most influential ones on business survival,although there are some differences between manufacturing and services. The main results are robust to the division of the sample by entry p

Resilience: Continuous renewal of competitive advantages

Even in these financially challenging times, business performance always comes down to a firm’s competitive advantages. Subsequently, how can companies sustain a long-run competitive advantage, especially in the face of increasing competition? Apart from the pat answer that innovation is critical to organizational survival, we argue that it is the innovation process and how companies manage it that forms the foundation of a resilient organization. Our research finds that organizational innovation processes take three main forms: reactive, proactive, and anticipatory innovators. It is from anticipatory innovators that resilient organizations emerge. Here, resilient organizations not only anticipate the needs of buyers but do so by creating an innovation orientation within the firm’s culture. This culture-based focus goes beyond any specific innovation; it directs leaders to create an organizational culture that is receptive to innovative ideas and to the changes they produce. Here, the competitive advantage is not so much innovation per se but the organization’s ability to continuously create competitive advantages based on innovations.#

Resilience: Continuous renewal of competitive advantages

Resilience: Continuous renewal of competitive advantages

Even in these financially challenging times, business performance alwayscomes down to a firm’s competitive advantages. Subsequently, how can companiessustain a long-run competitive advantage, especially in the face of increasing competi-tion? Apart from the pat answer that innovation is critical to organizational survival, weargue that it is the innovation process and how companies manage it that forms thefoundation of a resilient organization. Our research finds that organizational innovationprocesses take three main forms: reactive, proactive, and anticipatory innovators. It isfrom anticipatory innovators that resilient organizations emerge. Here, resilient orga-nizations not only anticipate the needs of buyers but do so by creating an innovationorientation within the firm’s culture. This culture-based focus goes beyond any specificinnovation; it directs leaders to create an organizational culture that is receptive toinnovative ideas and to the changes they produce. Here, the competitive advantage isnot so much innovation per se but the organization’s ability to continuously createcompetitive advantages based on innovations.#