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Researchers have shown increased interest in open innovation – that is, the inflow and outflow of ideas, or the collaborative efforts of innovating – while previous research on acquisitions of innovative firms has foremost focused on the inflow only. Open innovation, however, introduces several new challenges related to acquisitions of such firms, not the least related to intellectual property rights and innovative skills that may be distributed among several parties. This paper explores what issues the literature on open innovation and acquisitions deals with related to acquisitions in open innovation environments.

A systematic literature review is conducted to achieve the purpose of the paper. Two main questions are addressed. First, how can acquisitions be understood in relation to open innovation? Second, what does the open innovation literature say on matters of distributed innovations in relation to acquisitions?

The paper concludes that there is a quite limited amount of research concerning itself with open innovation and acquisitions combined. Furthermore, acquisitions are for the most part seen as a means to reach innovation in transaction-based transfers between parties.

With acquisitions of innovative firms, in general, being seen as an important means to reach new ideas, while open innovation is on the rise, the juxtaposing of these phenomena would be of high practical and theoretical relevance to study further.

This chapter describes and discusses how the notion of network pictures would contribute to the literature on management cognition. Network pictures, as conceptualized in business-to-business marketing, refer to managers’ sensemaking of the context and put focus on the interconnectivity among firms, along with managers’ subjective idea about what parties would be relevant for the firm. A systematic literature review on network pictures shows that network picture research focuses on how managers may have difficulties comprehending parties beyond present business partners, while the theoretical conceptualization emphasizes interdependences and prioritization and reprioritization among relevant parts of the limitless network. These latter ideas add to current research on managerial cognition. They do so through introducing a different notion of the context – or environment – and thereby raising the awareness of its complexity. Albeit the network picture literature focuses on how managers’ network pictures affect their strategizing in the network, the core idea entails how reactions and partners strategizing in parallel describe an ever-changing context but not the less important for any manager to comprehend.

Customers are important stakeholders for any company; yet, they seem not to be widely discussed in merger and acquisition research. This chapter synthesizes the current body of research on customers in mergers and acquisitions through presenting a systematic literature review. The chapter is based on a systematic literature review resulting from a search in EBSCO Host for any research item that refers to “customer” and “consolidation or merger of corporation.” All articles were coded to specify how customers are described, with a focus on whether customers are expected to affect and/or be affected by the merger or acquisition. Articles were compared with regard to their year of issue and research disciplines of publishing journals. The review indicates how customers continue to be discussed only to limited extent. The customer roles array from them as an acquirable customer base to customers as actors, whose activities become the very reason to merge or acquire. Literature also refers to them as victims and affected by the merger or acquisition, and reacting parties. In addition to the description of welfare transfer from consumers to acquirers in law and economics studies, the different ways of referring to customers extend beyond specific research disciplines. The literature review indicates more multifaceted ways of describing customers in recent research. No systematic literature review on customers in merger and acquisition literature has previously been conducted. The comparison of research disciplines, years of issue, and customer roles provides new insights into developments in the merger and acquisition field of research.

This chapter presents a review of the state of the art on the topic of knowledge transfer following post-merger integration (PMI) in international mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and identifies points of agreement and disagreement, recognizes underexplored areas and provides suggestions on how they could be explored in future studies. The chapter points to the limited amount of literature that describes knowledge transfer following international acquisitions, while highlighting it as an emerging field of research. The knowledge transfer literature mainly refers to innovation and innovation capabilities, while areas such as marketing and customer knowledge are vitally absent in the literature. In any international acquisition, such knowledge transfer would be of fundamental importance, given the acquisition motive to reach new markets or customers. Two case studies on the transfer of knowledge about customers following international acquisitions are provided. The case illustrations point to a focus on knowledge transfer on strategic levels in the post-merger integration following international acquisitions, while the operational sales forces’ transfer of knowledge is largely disregarded in practice. Since much of the tacit knowledge about customers is handled on that level, it needs to be recognized and developed. The chapter indicates that raising the awareness of the transfer of knowledge about customers following international acquisitions is important from a practitioner’s as well as a research point of view.

This chapter reviews the literature on servitization to understand whether and how mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been dealt with and what the portrayed consequences are of servitization through M&As. Servitization refers to how manufacturing firms extend and remodel their offerings to focus on value in use rather than product transfer. The rationale of the chapter follows from how business model innovation or business modeling has been predicted as the next M&A wave, while the focus on servitization has been pronounced in research and practice as a means for manufacturing firms to refocus operations during the past decade. The chapter concludes that while the servitization literature is vibrant, the mode of reaching service competence and renewing business is not well explored in the literature. In line with the predicted next M&A wave, servitization through M&As would thereby create an interesting path for future research.

Purpose – In the recent redefinition of the European Commission's corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy, attention is brought to CSR as a motor for innovation. However, literature in the area remains scarce. This chapter describes and discusses innovation as a consequence of a firm's CSR activities.

Methodology/approach – The empirical part of the chapter is based on the content analysis of 58 annual reports issued by the companies listed on the Swedish large-cap stock exchange. Their statements on CSR were coded to grasp the meanings of CSR, what areas they focus on, and types of innovation.

Findings – The study indicates that CSR innovation mostly focuses on environmental aspects. Companies that are less regulated by law in their operations tend to become more creative in their CSR approaches. CSR policy complements rather than enhances CSR innovation. CSR orientation is path-dependent on competences and position in the supply chain, and puts focus on incremental innovation. For product innovation, CSR may either appear as CSR in product (CSR-influenced material choices) or CSR in use.

Research limitations/implications – The data comprises established Swedish firms, however acting on international markets.

Social implications – Innovation and CSR are two important pillars for societal development. Finding motors that foster innovation, while increasing CSR awareness and using CSR as the driver for innovation, are important challenges for the future.

Originality/value of chapter – The study contributes to previous research through linking CSR orientation to innovation, describing types of innovation, and connecting their combined foci to different industry sectors.

The healthcare sector faces severe problems due to increasing costs, decreasing workforce and an increasing share of elderly people. Innovation is proposed as the main cure. However, there are several barriers that prevent new ideas from becoming innovations. In this chapter we focus on the biomedical engineering sector and the barriers to commercialisation that are present for applied research projects within this sector. We describe and categorise the barriers and discuss their implications and how they could be overcome. This study has a longitudinal approach and is based on data collected annually through half-structured interviews for approximately 40 research and development projects at four universities, two hospitals and one municipality healthcare centre, across eastern and central Sweden. Our results found a broad range of barriers to commercialisation, which have been categorised as follows: (1) Barriers coupled to the healthcare sector per se, for example security regulations, procedures for governmental procurement and the industry structure. (2) Barriers related to the market structure, for example public procurement matters and the fact that hospitals commonly look for holistic solutions rather than pieces and gadgets that solve isolated parts of problems. (3) Barriers related to entrepreneurship attitudes among researchers. The findings contribute to research on the ability to create innovation in a highly prioritised sector.