Understanding Knowledge Absorption for Inbound Open Innovation Practices

Author(s):  
Oya Zincir ◽  
Diana Rus

The successful integration of internal and external knowledge is crucial for the success of inbound open innovation processes. Yet, to date, our understanding of how different kinds of knowledge characteristics affect the knowledge absorption process in inbound open innovation is still rather fragmented. In this chapter, the authors provide an overview of how different aspects of knowledge (i.e., internal and external knowledge antecedents: prior knowledge, internal and external knowledge structure, knowledge source, types of knowledge, and knowledge environment) related to knowledge absorption in the inbound open innovation process. In the discussion, the authors highlight how far different knowledge characteristics either help or hinder knowledge absorption and, thereby, the potential success of inbound open innovation practices. Moreover, they point towards areas that promise to be fruitful for future research exploring the link between aspects of knowledge and absorptive capacity in the context of inbound open innovation.

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (06) ◽  
pp. 1340016 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUSTYNA DĄBROWSKA ◽  
IRINA FIEGENBAUM ◽  
ANTERO KUTVONEN

Open innovation holds great potential for improving the efficiency of companies' innovation processes, but also presents substantial risks. A key issue in innovation management is finding the right balance of openness, i.e., determining how open companies should be in their innovation activities. However, academics and business practitioners hold conflicting notions of what constitutes open innovation practice and of how "open innovation companies" are defined. In this paper, we present three in-depth case studies of global R&D-intensive companies, where we find that the firms' perception of their openness differs from their actual situation (as determined by the innovation practices that they apply), and that each company has a different view as to what constitutes open innovation. We claim that resolving conceptual ambiguity and differentiating between openness (as a philosophical aspect) and open innovation (as a way of structuring the innovation process) in research is critical in order to clarify the current state of open innovation research and enable the communication of results to practitioners.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 169
Author(s):  
Fernando Almeida

This study aimed to explore the diversity of open-innovation practices that are adopted in Portuguese SMEs considering the outside-in, inside-out, and coupled paradigms. A quantitative study was carried out considering a sample of 187 Portuguese SMEs. The findings revealed that these organizations favored the adoption of the outside-in paradigm. The inside-out model was the least relevant, especially for smaller companies (i.e., small and micro-companies). The most adopted outside-in practices were the integration of external knowledge from suppliers and clients; in the inside-out model, licensing processes were more important; while in the coupled model, joint ventures and network consortiums stood out. The increase in the innovation capacity of these organizations was highlighted as the most relevant benefit, while the lack of resources and difficulties in integrating knowledge emerged as challenges. This study is especially relevant for the establishment of public-support policies that promote the involvement of Portuguese SMEs in open-innovation processes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 68-75
Author(s):  
Elissa Dwi Lestari

Startups, as they are bounded to their liabilities of newness and smallness, need to collaborate extensively with their external partners through the open innovation process. This study aims to depict Co-working space's pivotal role in building up a working innovation ecosystem that facilitates open innovation for startups. To get a more deep understanding of the phenomena, this study used an exploratory study based on three case studies of Co-working spaces operated in the Jakarta region. The study shows that the open innovation process among startups is not naturally existed, but instead, it is purposefully designed by the role of a community manager who acts as the ecosystem catalyst. The community manager becomes the ecosystem enablers that facilitate the networking process by connecting members. As a result, these activities will help the emerging of mutual connection and collaboration processes among members that empower open innovation among startups members. The multiple-case design makes the study conclusions might be difficult to generalize. Future research, including quantitative studies, will help the conclusions examination and the knowledge enrichment of start-ups' open innovation process. This paper will enrich the knowledge concerning how Co-working spaces member seizing opportunities that lead to the open innovation process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 12469
Author(s):  
Beata Poteralska

Effective development of technological innovations requires efficient management at the stages of their generation, realisation, and their implementation. For this aim, concepts such as foresight, technology assessment, and organisational capabilities assessment can be applied; however, so far they have been used mainly individually or sometimes combined but to a very limited extent. Moreover, they are not used comprehensively, but only selectively, e.g., at some stages of the innovation processes. The research problem undertaken in the paper concerns the effectiveness of the integration of these concepts: future research (mainly foresight), technology assessment, and organisational capabilities assessment for the needs of supporting innovation processes. The paper is aimed at presenting an original approach assuming the integration of the aforementioned triad. The proposed approach has been developed individually by the paper’s author on the basis of (1) state of the art analysis comprising both theoretical approaches and practical examples of individual and combined application of the concepts analysed, and (2) the author’s practical experience resulting from research projects conducted collectively. The research result comprises an original matrix approach where the individual concepts of the triad are applied in a way enabling their mutual complementation at all successive stages of the innovation process. The approach proposed comprises modules referring to the succeeding stages of the innovation process, namely generation, realisation and application of technological innovations. The areas of the approach application and possible directions of its further development are presented.


2011 ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hakikur Rahman ◽  
Isabel Ramos

Innovation has become a recognized driver of economic prosperity of a country through sustained growth of its entrepreneurships. Moreover, recently coined term open innovation is increasingly taking a lead in enterprise management in terms of sustained profitability. Foci of researchers and practitioners are revolving around innovation methods, processes, and strategies. This chapter seeks to find out open innovation researches and practices that are being carried out circumscribing development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through a longitudinal study. Along this context the study is investigating into researches that are being carried out by leading researchers and research houses across the globe, and at the same time, it also investigates open innovation practices that are being carried out for the development of SMEs. Before its conclusion, the chapter attempts to develop a framework for future research practices.


Author(s):  
Christian Horn ◽  
Marcel Bogers ◽  
Alexander Brem*

Crowdsourcing is an increasingly important phenomenon that is fundamentally changing how companies create and capture value. There are still important questions with respect to how crowdsourcing works and can be applied in practice, especially in business practice. In this chapter, we focus on prediction markets as a mechanism and tool to tap into a crowd in the early stages of an innovation process. The act of opening up to external knowledge sources is also in line with the growing interest in open innovation. One example of a prediction market, a virtual stock market, is applied to open innovation through an online platform. We show that use of mechanisms of internal crowdsourcing with prediction markets can outperform use of external crowds.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1386-1402
Author(s):  
Pierre-Jean Barlatier ◽  
Eleni Giannopoulou ◽  
Julien Pénin

In the era of open innovation, companies that want to innovate can no more remain isolated, they have to interact and collaborate with diverse actors of the innovation process. The rise of open innovation practices resulted in an increase of intermediaries for innovation. This chapter aims to better understand why innovative companies use the services of such intermediaries. Two distinct types of open innovation intermediaries have been identified, whose roles are significantly different; while the first type help companies to reduce transaction costs related to open innovation, the second type may be implicated directly in the creation, transfer and diffusion of knowledge. This chapter illustrates both roles in the case of public research valorization and distinguish clearly “Technology Transfer Organizations” (TTOs), whose role is to reduce transaction costs related to technology transfer from “Research and Technology Organizations” (RTOs) that are actively involved in knowledge creation and transfer processes.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1094-1123
Author(s):  
Hakikur Rahman

Innovation is treated as a recognized driver of economic prosperity of a country through the sustained growth of its entrepreneurships. Moreover, recently coined term open innovation is increasingly taking the lead in enterprise management in terms of value addition. Foci of academics, researchers and practitioners nowadays are revolving around various innovation models, comprising innovation methods, processes and strategies. This chapter seeks to find out open innovation researches and practices that are being carried out circumscribing development of entrepreneurships, particularly the sector belonging to the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through a longitudinal study. Along this context the chapter put forwards part of a continuous study investigating into researches in the area of open innovation for entrepreneurship development that are being carried out by leading researchers and research houses across the globe, and at the same time it also investigating open innovation practices that are being carried out for the development of entrepreneurships, emphasizing SMEs. Before conclusion the chapter has tried to develop a framework to instigate future research.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 524-550
Author(s):  
Preecha Chaochotechuang ◽  
Farhad Daneshgar ◽  
Stefania Mariano

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance knowledge by exploring how small and medium enterprises (SMEs) search for external knowledge in their open innovation processes, and how the search can be advanced. Design/methodology/approach This exploratory research employs a qualitative multiple case study design. A literature review of open innovation in SMEs and external knowledge search is used to build the premises of this study. Semi-structured interviews with eight SMEs are employed to collect subsequent exploratory empirical data. Findings This exploratory study revealed that SMEs adopted a combination of cognitive and experiential search heuristics where cognitive search was practiced during the innovation research process when searching for external knowledge, whilst experiential search was practiced during the innovation development process. Concerning the search space, this study found that SMEs mainly explored local knowledge, and occasionally pursued distant knowledge when confronted with complex problems. The reason for the above behavior was explained to be related to the reduction of costs and risks associated with innovation activities. Originality/value External knowledge plays a pivotal role in open innovation. Although extant studies have shed some light on how large firms search for external knowledge, however, it is not clear how SMEs search for external knowledge. Moreover, this study focuses on learning about both the search space and the search heuristics at both the research and the development stages of the innovation process.


2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 931-952 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Anzola-Román ◽  
Cristina Bayona-Sáez ◽  
Teresa García-Marco ◽  
Valentina Lazzarotti

PurposeThis paper aims to advance the understanding regarding the profiting of collaborative innovation practices, focusing particularly on how the intensity of collaboration along the innovation process and the relatedness between the partners’ technological bases affect the outcomes of such process in terms of efficiency and generation of technological innovations.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the results from causal models and the estimation of average marginal effects, this research analyses the direct and joint effect of technological proximity and intensity of collaboration in the early and late phases of the process.FindingsThe findings suggest that there is a positive unconditional relationship between the aforementioned aspects and innovative performance and that the joint effects diverge depending on the stage of the process, i.e. while in the early phase collaborating intensely with close partners seems to be advisable, this circumstance proves to be problematic in the late phase of the innovation process.Originality/valueThe analysis developed provides clarity regarding relevant aspects of collaborative innovation practices, particularly, the search for and selection of optimal partners. In general terms, the evidence found here suggests seeking for collaborating intensely along the whole process with partners whose technological bases present a tight matchup with that of the focal firm. Results also call for awareness of the potential drawbacks derived from intense collaborations with close partners in the late phases of the process, thus hinting toward the convenience of developing protection mechanisms. In addition, this work provides interesting insights that challenge the notion of “proximity paradox” and set out further questions that might be worth considering for future research.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document