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How can joint open innovation (OI) projects between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large companies (LCs) be effectively managed? This study aims to try to answer this research question with a focus on the critical success factors (CSFs) of such cooperation.

Based on 40 semi-structured interviews with Italian SMEs and LCs engaged in various industries, 20 open OI projects involving SMEs and LCs are investigated using a reflexive thematic analysis, a methodology involving both deductive and inductive approaches.

Fifteen CSFs grouped into seven categories emerge from the analysis of joint OI projects between SMEs and LCs. Among them, shared leadership, dynamic decision-making and priority setting emerge as essential elements at the basis of the proposed SMEs–LCs cooperation in joint OI projects that were not sufficiently addressed by prior studies.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide an evidence-based framework for managing joint OI projects between SMEs and LCs. Relatedly, this study links the practices and most recurring CSFs that facilitate such cooperation.

This study aims to investigate the effects of project-level external knowledge search breadth and search depth on the innovation performance of open innovation (OI) projects in large firms; it further considers these effects mediated by two forms of control mechanisms (process and outcome control) when the level of project complexity and the two stages of a project – early (problem definition) and late (solution development) – are taken into account.

Based on a survey of 187 managers responsible for an OI project, the authors use theory on behavioral-based control mechanisms to explore whether the effect of external knowledge search breadth and depth on OI performance is contingent on having the right levels of control mechanisms in place.

The results showed that the control mechanism mediates the relationship between external knowledge search breadth and depth and OI project performance. Furthermore, project complexity is an important moderator of these effects, especially for outcome control.

A better OI project’s performance is not achieved by external knowledge search breadth and depth alone, but by building process and outcome control mechanism on it to balance knowledge sharing and protecting tension. Furthermore, Outcome control is only helpful with less complex OI projects.

Despite the multiple calls for research on the dark side of open innovation, very few studies have approached the topic so far. This study aims to analyse successful and unsuccessful open innovation projects.

This study uses thematic analysis to describe the factors determining their (un)success. The researchers interviewed 27 managers and owners in the manufacturing sector. Then, the respondents were asked to discuss one successful and one unsuccessful open innovation project to explore the differences in triggers and setbacks, focusing on the causes that determined the failures.

Findings show that many interviewees are reluctant to identify failure cases, which somewhat explains the paucity of studies on the topic, and others do so when the failure is recognised by a third party (such as a public institution not granting funds to the project). This study discussed how this phenomenon is linked with the paradoxical relation between innovation success and failure. It is also found that triggers and setbacks determining the project's (un)success are markedly differently based on the technological intensity of the firm. Implications for scholars and practitioners are also drawn.

This study provides a balanced view between open innovation successes and failures to offer informative recommendations to practitioners. Furthermore, it contributes to filling the scarcity of studies related to risks and failures of open innovation projects. This gap has been addressed by studying the factors that determine the success and unsuccess of an open innovation project.

The purpose of the study was to maximize team members' collaboration and develop relationships in a newly formed team to engage with internal and external partners to achieve open innovation (OI) in product development. The authors examine the role of collaborative human resource management (HRM) and relational leadership (RL) in this process.

The study took a two-stage qualitative methodological approach to examine relational leadership as it emerges in a newly formed cross-functional team at a large German fashion house. In stage one, 10 interviews were conducted with members of the new project team over three months and in stage two six external knowledge exchange partners were interviewed.

Collaborative HRM promotes greater social exchange, trust and commitment of team members internal and external to the organization to support the emergence of RL, which is critical for OI. The authors found that collaborative HRM practices such as team-based recruitment, team-based training, team-based performance management with rewards systems and job design support the emergence of RL. Moreover, RL practices such as congruence and commitment towards team goals subsequently promoted the development of knowledge sourcing and sharing (KSS) to support OI.

The study is the first to demonstrate how collaborative HRM enables RL practices to help newly formed teams overcome challenges with achieving KSS to successfully engage with internal and external partners for OI. The authors contribute to HRM theory development of the relationship between HRM and OI by conceptualizing the OI process as a social construction through collaborative HRM and relational leadership.

This work provides new insights into possible managerial choices and development directions for practising open innovation (OI) in companies. The purpose of this paper is to explore the different practices, actors and tools adopted for opening up the innovation process, in particular, by small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are still facing difficulties in its implementation.

The paper is based on a literature review and an exploratory survey of a sample of 85 European SMEs.

The study identifies a total of 23 practices, 20 actors and 11 tools involved in the OI processes of companies. It highlights, through literature and empirical evidence, how different combinations of practices, actors and tools are put into practice.

The developed framework offers new insights both from OI literature and from practitioners’ point of view into the supporting decision-making processes regarding which practices to implement, tools to adopt and actors to collaborate with. A wider investigation is recommended to include more variables to define the differences among the combinations of practices, actors and tools in terms of types of innovation (e.g. product, process, etc.), the openness degree and other contextual factors.

The originality of this paper is based on the fact that it focusses on a practical perspective of OI implementation, building a framework of reference from previous literature and empirical investigation.

The purpose of this paper is to fill a significant research gap in academic literature pertaining to open innovation (OI). To do so, this paper empirically tests the impact of organizational culture, employees’ knowledge, attitudes and rewards as antecedents and mediators of OI adoption in organizations, facilitating a more thorough understanding by using an empirical multi-level approach.

This paper analyzes the results of the “Identification of Industrial Needs for Open Innovation Education in Europe” survey through a quantitative analysis using logistic regression models. This survey includes 528 employees working in 28 different industrial sectors in 37 countries, most of which are in Europe.

The results suggest a positive impact of organizational characteristics on the adoption of OI (i.e. including the adoption of outside-in and inside-out OI activities in participating organizations), showing that the openness of an organization’s culture increases its likelihood of adopting an OI paradigm. More importantly, the results highlight the positive mediating effect of employees’ knowledge and rewards on this relationship.

The data set that was the basis of this paper was generated in European countries, the results of the analysis are limited and appropriate for this region and may vary when applied to other regions of the world.

The proposed multi-level approach offers new insight into organizational knowledge. It enables the improvement of OI and knowledge management practices in organizations by assisting practitioners and academics in recognizing the relationship between organizational culture; employees’ knowledge, attitudes and rewards; and the adoption of the OI paradigm.

This paper offers a possible explanation on why open-border cultures are more likely to have a successful OI adoption, by relating it to factors that advance in the presence of an open-border culture, such as active participation of OI relative departments in knowledge sourcing and knowledge exchange, and rewarding employees for OI activities.

This paper presents a new framework which links organizational culture to OI, moving on from merely examining culture in terms of its positive or negative impact on OI adoption. It contributes to research on the OI paradigm and knowledge management by highlighting the significance of antecedents and mediators from a multi-level perspective using multiple units of analysis. Most previous studies focus on a single unit of analysis.

A comprehensive understanding about open innovation implementation is still lacking. In particular, a compilation of drivers and barriers for OI implementation is absent from the literature. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify critical success factors (CSFs) for OI implementation at the firm level.

A systematic literature review was conducted in order to identify CSFs for OI implementation in previously published literature. A total of 2,894 papers were identified, 156 of which were subjected to full independent analysis by the three authors. The following aspects were considered: research strategy, approach (empirical or theoretical) and objectives; theoretical background; methodological procedures; main results; and contributions to the literature. If the paper reported empirical research that included a description of actual OI implementation, additional aspects were analyzed: industry or sector of application; firm characteristics; success of OI implementation and OI tools and techniques reported.

A synthetizing framework with six thematic categories of CSFs was proposed: leadership, internal innovation capability, network and relationships, strategy, technology management, and culture. A total of 22 CSFs for OI implementation were identified within these categories.

The proposed framework is an attempt to systematically generate a comprehensive list of factors that impact OI implementation. As such, it can support the theoretical development of OI-related capabilities, and serve as basis for future research that investigates operationalization and measurement of such capabilities.

This study aims to contribute to the open innovation (OI) literature by investigating the transitions between three phases in the OI process (i.e. idea generation, idea promotion and idea realization) and how these are moderated by different forms of shared leadership (i.e. transactional, and transformational) as perceived by participants in the OI process.

The authors tested a set of hypotheses using moderated mediation PLS-SEM models on a bootstrapped sample of OI participants (N = 173).

The authors found a direct relationship between idea generation and realization, as well as indirectly through idea promotion. This study implies that the promotion of ideas by participants can be beneficial in inter-organizational OI teams, as promotion of ideas provides a linkage between the generation of ideas and the idea realization phase. However, while shared leadership has been shown to be beneficial in conventional teams, the authors found evidence that this may not be the case in inter-organizational OI teams. Higher levels of shared transformational leadership from colleagues with whom employees do not share the same organizational background may hamper the promotion of ideas.

In contrast to the mainstream view, the authors found significant evidence that transformational shared leadership negatively moderates the direct relationship between idea generation and the promotion of ideas and the indirect relationship between idea generation and realization via idea promotion.

How does the cereal industry innovate in selective partnerships? The purpose of this paper is to study the cereal industry and the crispbread success in terms of how different forms of openness jointly shape new product development (NPD).

A multiphase mixed methods design was used to combine three sets of data: a case study, sales figures and interviews with ten major actors in the Norwegian cereal industry.

Transparency and interaction with machinery suppliers appear to result in a more successful type of innovation. In practice, companies are more open than, perhaps, they realise. Factors such as mutual trust, asset control and distribution are positive for openness in innovation processes with suppliers.

Future actors such as suppliers, producers, distributors and policy makers in the food industry will benefit from trust and an open innovation (OI) mind-set during NPD.

Prior to 2011, Norway had no large-scale commercial crispbread production. Six years later, Norwegian production nears the sales figures of the leading Swedish brand Wasa. Is this due to OI? Understanding various forms of selective partnership, collaboration and trust among actors in the food industry is valuable for future growth.

In the wake of the growing popularity of the open innovation approach, leveraging suppliers as external sources of innovation has attracted increasing interest from scholars and practitioners. Successful supplier involvement largely depends on an effective performance measurement process, but both supply chain management and innovation management literature have paid limited attention to this aspect. This paper aims to fill this gap by illustrating how companies measure the performance of the suppliers involved in their innovation projects and what role is played by the purchasing department.

This study interviews project stakeholders from nine different organizations acting as focal companies in the supply chains of various industries. This paper complements this on-field information with a vast amount of data collected from secondary project documents. Structured data coding and analysis allow us to discuss how companies redesign their performance measurement systems to ease the collaboration with suppliers in innovation and what factors underly these decisions.

The findings show that, in many cases, supplier performance measurement systems deviate from their typical characteristics to support collaboration in innovation projects. They integrate quantitative and qualitative measures, include contributions from different project stakeholders and are oriented toward high visibility and transparency with suppliers. A more substantial redesign of these systems is favored when purchasing is assigned to strategic project responsibilities and possesses higher absorptive capacity.

The results complement the knowledge for the supply chain management field, where supplier performance measurement systems have been discussed in the context of traditional buyer-supplier relationships, but not comprehensively in innovation projects and not considering the role of purchasing. Findings also contribute to the innovation management literature, which has mostly focused on what aspects need to be measured for innovation partners, rather than how to manage the performance measurement process in practice.