Open Innovation in France

France has long been associated with a state-directed “dirigiste” model of linear R&D focussed on large programmes such as development of the TGV high-speed train. Contemporary France has, however, largely left the state-centered model behind, introducing a range of devices since the turn of the 21st century aimed at opening French innovation to international and cross-sectoral collaboration for increased productivity and national competitiveness. This case study traces the opening of the French innovation system and the way one new academic, industrial and government collaboration aims to make use of new features of the system to accelerate development of an eco-innovation cluster focussed on cities of the future.

Apache Sustained Competitive Advantage in the Web Server Industry

Open source communities such as the ones responsible for Linux and Apache became well known for producing, with volunteer labor innovating over the Internet, high-quality software that has been widely adopted by organizations. In the web server market, Apache has dominated in terms of market share for over 15 years, outperforming corporations and research institutions. The resource-based view (RBV) of firms posits that an organization outperforms its competitors because it has valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and non-substitutable resources. Accordingly, one concludes that Apache possesses such resources to sustain its competitive advantage. However, one does not know what those resources are. This chapter is an effort to locate them, answering the question: “What resources enable Apache to outperform its for-profit competitors consistently?” This research draws on the RBV to develop a series of propositions about Apache’s internal resources and organizational capabilities. For each proposition developed, methods for their empirical validation are proposed, and future research directions are provided.

Dynamic Learning as Entrepreneurial Action in the Context of Open Innovation

Recent scholarly discussion on open innovation put forward the notion that an organisation’s ability to internalise external knowledge and learn from various sources in undertaking new product development is crucial to its competitive performance. Nevertheless, little attention has been paid to how growth-oriented small firms identify and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities (i.e. take entrepreneurial action) related to such development, in an open innovation context, from a social learning perspective. This chapter, based on an instrumental case-firm, demonstrates analytically how learning as entrepreneurial action takes place, drawing on situated learning theory. It is argued that such learning is dynamic in nature and is founded on specific organising principles that foster both inter- and intracommunal learning.

Sources of Innovation and Success in the Food Service Industry

The purpose of the study in this chapter is to investigate and analyze the sources of innovation and success in food service industry. It also discusses of what kind of network management capabilities were needed in these SME cases. This chapter will demonstrate that the SMEs have a good chance to succeed if they can harness the external knowledge in their start up process. This chapter contributes to the prior strategic management and business networks research by analyzing the selected SME cases in the food service industry.

Building Innovative Business Ideas in Small Business Enterprises

This study of “Bird ICT” is a case of a business development company in the field of information and communication technology (ICT). The chapter explores, describes, and examines the story and circumstances of building and managing innovative business ideas in an Egyptian small business enterprise. It specifically addresses specific circumstances, opportunities, and challenges with which a small enterprise pursuing innovation strategies is faced, and analyzes how effective deployment of innovative business ideas and bringing them to the market has contributed to strategic competitiveness. Findings highlight the patterns of developing new business ideas and mainly conclude the following: strategic competitiveness is accounted for by management’s efficiency, commitment, cheap labor, and most importantly, fast delivery of easy hit technologies and innovative, reliable, flexible, yet easy to use innovative advertising solutions. This study used qualitative research strategy in connection with theory to gain full understanding of a natural setting, and as a comprehensive method of substantiating or un-substantiating the context of achieving strategic competitiveness through new innovations and technologies, and provides insights into the nature of management of innovations, from which lessons can be drawn for other organizations both in small business sector organizations and generally.

Research and Practices on Open Innovation

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.

Open Innovation and Organizational Capacities

Open innovation has gained popularity in recent years. But is the concept new or does it express old realities? The literature review of this case study found that the term “open innovation” is recent and that its development has been facilitated by technological innovations. The case study collected data over a period of eight months from an agrifood SME in Quebec, Canada. The aim was to go beyond the basic model of open innovation and integrate dynamic, absorptive and appropriative capacities into a new working open innovation model. Initial results show that components associated with the basic open innovation model such as intellectual property, joint R&D and co-product development are present as well as certain organizational capacities. The difficulty of applying the concept is due to its interactions rather than its components taken individually. The study concludes that further work is needed to extend the applicability and the foundations of open innovation.

Theoretical Model for a Local Economy Open Innovation Program

This chapter presents a model of open innovation as a collaborative effort of firms, mostly SMEs that are managed under a government support with the assistive involvement of academia. While normally industry-academia cooperation is R&D focused, the model presented is a model of open innovation not involving dedicated R&D. It deals with the process of assimilating existing technologies and methodologies; the model focuses on search, identification, and implementation phases to improve competitiveness through open innovation strategies. The model claims that specifically for SMEs, innovation not related to R&D, and especially open innovation, is hard to deal with alone. Therefore the model presents a group of SMEs working together towards that end, and the role of the governing authority supporting them. The model is supported by a short case study of a national program of Israel, the Users Association for Advanced Technologies.

Innovation 2.0

This chapter describes a new sustainable business model, Innovation 2.0, led and deployed by the author, with the goal of increasing the innovation level at the telco service portfolio for the end-user, thank to the convergence of Internet and Telco worlds and the ‘fresh’ and ‘effervescent’ proposals created by start-ups. This model, created by Win Win Consultants, a Spanish company leader in marketing and strategy issues, under the premises of fairness for the different players, requires an open-minded view of the businesses and, in fact, is a model for open innovation in telcos, which traditionally tend to address innovation from a prism more reactive than proactive. The model proposed has been deployed in Telefonica with very good results, deploying 12 commercial services, which have generated more than 10 Millions € incomes and 8 Millions of savings in investments. Innovation 2.0 is a sustainable model, finding a balance for all parties in a win-win basis and constitutes an appropriate model for the twenty-first century telcos.

A Structural Model for the Design and Implementation of Open Innovation

With the recent developments of open innovation as a formal management discipline, many organizations today are struggling to form effective internal competencies that can be leveraged to generate measured success. Many companies are using a trial-and-error approach that too often leads to unnecessary cost overruns and even failure. The model presented in this chapter provides readers with a simple, yet elegant structure necessary for the design and implementation of a successful open innovation program. The chapter explores the leading causes of failure in a new open innovation program, and offers guidelines and criteria that open innovation leaders and practitioners can use to avoid these pitfalls, and to establish a program that generates tangible returns, while motivating participants to achieve more desirable innovative behaviors.