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1 – 10 of over 38000Shufang Huang, Jin Chen and Liang Liang
The link between openness and innovative performance has been established as an inverted U-shape relationship, namely, the openness-performance connection is not always positive…
Abstract
Purpose
The link between openness and innovative performance has been established as an inverted U-shape relationship, namely, the openness-performance connection is not always positive. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of partner heterogeneity to characterize the influence of “quality” changes in partners on innovative performance, that is, the focus of this paper. Given that partner heterogeneity is crucial in explaining open innovative performance, it is also worth placing the examination of this key construct in emerging regions such as China.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample selection of this study covers a wide range of industries, but requires that the sample firms be manufacturing enterprises with an open innovation strategy. With opportunities and challenges associated with partner collaboration toward open innovation, the Chinese province of Zhejiang has established its reputation. Thus, empirical data were collected randomly from data pool of Zhejiang Province Economic and Information Commission, as well as a survey questionnaire. Data were using a cross-sectional survey methodology encompassing diverse organizations, industries, and nations.
Findings
Empirical testing of this assumption in a sample of 217 manufacturing firms indicates that partner heterogeneities, which are classified as organizational heterogeneity, industry heterogeneity, and national heterogeneity are all positively associated with innovative performance, but the strength of this association is influenced by environmental turbulence. Technological turbulence significantly and positively modulates the relationships of organizational and national heterogeneities with innovative performance. Market turbulence also plays a significant positive role on the relationship between national heterogeneity and innovative performance, while technological and market turbulence roles on the relationship between industry heterogeneity and innovative performance are not confirmed.
Originality/value
This paper refines the connotative dimensions of partner heterogeneity around the core concept of partner heterogeneity in open innovation in the context of emerging region, China. The study presents a systematic, in-depth analysis, and verifies the impact mechanisms of partner heterogeneity in open innovation on innovative performance by integrating the resource-based view, organizational learning theory, and transaction cost theory.
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Chunhsien Wang, Min-Nan Chen and Ching-Hsing Chang
The purpose of this paper is to investigate alliance partner diversity (APD) as a driving force that potentially enhances firms’ innovation generation (IG) in interfirm open…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate alliance partner diversity (APD) as a driving force that potentially enhances firms’ innovation generation (IG) in interfirm open alliance contexts. The authors propose that APD enhances IG but that the effects depend on both alliance network position and the double-edged external knowledge search strategy. Building on the knowledge-based view and social capital theory, the authors formally model how external knowledge search strategies can lead to productive or destructive acquisitions of external knowledge in interfirm open alliance networks. The authors theorize that when an individual firm adopts a central position in a complex interfirm open alliance network, its propensity toward beneficial IG depends on its knowledge search strategy (i.e. its breadth and depth) due to the joint influence of network position and knowledge search strategy on innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
Using an original large-scale survey of high-tech firms, this study shows that the relationship between partner diversity and IG is contingent on a firm’s network position and knowledge search strategy. The authors also offer an original analysis of how knowledge search strategy (i.e. its breadth and depth) in network centrality (NC) affects the efficacy of knowledge acquisition in interfirm open alliance networks. Empirically, the authors provide an original contribution to the open innovation literature by integrating social capital and knowledge-based theory to rigorously measure firm IG.
Findings
Overall, our findings suggest that the knowledge search strategy imparts a double-edged effect that may promote or interfere with external knowledge in IG in the context of the diversity of alliance partners.
Research limitations/implications
The work has important limitations, such as its analysis of a single industry in the empirical models. Therefore, further studies should consider multiple industries that may provide useful insights into innovation decisions.
Practical implications
External knowledge search is valuable, particularly in the high-tech industry, as external knowledge acquisition generates innovation output. This study serves to raise managers’ awareness of various approaches to external knowledge searches and highlights the importance of network position in knowledge acquisition from interfirm open alliance collaborations.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to investigate the double-edged effect of knowledge search on interfirm open alliance networks. It also contributes to the theoretical and practical literature on interfirm open alliance networks by reflecting on external knowledge search and underlying network centrality and APD factors.
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Fauzia Jabeen, Jaroslav Belas, Gabriele Santoro and Gazi Mahabubul Alam
The economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has had significant consequences on the activities of companies worldwide. This study aims to unveil how open innovation…
Abstract
Purpose
The economic crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has had significant consequences on the activities of companies worldwide. This study aims to unveil how open innovation fostered business model innovation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) during the pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
The research adopts a qualitative approach, involving a multiple case study methodology, and focusses on six SMEs operating in various traditional sectors.
Findings
The findings highlight the impact of the external stimulus, COVID-19, on business model innovation and the key role of open innovation management in pursuing the business model innovation, which may also involve a digital transformation.
Originality/value
While some studies have examined how the pandemic has fostered business model transformation, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study analysing the pivotal role of open innovation in driving business model innovation during challenging times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Peter M. Bican, Carsten C. Guderian and Anne Ringbeck
As firms turn their innovation activities toward collaborating with external partners, they face additional challenges in managing their knowledge. While different modes of…
Abstract
Purpose
As firms turn their innovation activities toward collaborating with external partners, they face additional challenges in managing their knowledge. While different modes of intellectual property right regimes are applied in closed innovation systems, there seems to be tension between the concepts of “open innovation” and “intellectual property rights”. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how firms best manage knowledge via intellectual property rights in open innovation processes.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a mixed methods approach, the authors review relevant literature at the intersection of knowledge management, intellectual property rights, strategic management of intellectual property rights and the open innovation process. The authors identify success drivers through the lenses of – but not limited to – intellectual property rights and classify them in five distinct groups. Expending the view on open innovation beyond its modus operandi, the authors develop the Open Innovation Life Cycle, covering three stages and three levels of the open innovation process. The authors apply their findings to a case study in the pharmaceutical industry.
Findings
The authors provide four key contributions. First, existing literature yields inconclusive results concerning the enabling or disabling function of intellectual property rights in open innovation processes, but the majority of scholars detect an ambivalent relation. Second, they identify and classify success drivers of successful knowledge management via intellectual property rights in open innovation processes. Third, they advance literature on open innovation beyond its modus operandi to include three stages and three levels. Fourth, they test their findings to a case study and show how management leverages knowledge by properly using intellectual property rights in open innovation.
Practical implications
The findings support firms in managing knowledge via intellectual property rights in open innovation processes. Management should account for the peculiarities of open innovation preparation and open innovation termination to prevent unintentional knowledge drain.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies to view open innovation as a process beyond its modus operandi by considering the preparations for and termination of open innovation activities. It also addresses the levels involved in managing knowledge via intellectual property rights in open innovation from individual (personal) to project and firm level.
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Muhammad Usman and Wim Vanhaverbeke
Open innovation in start-ups is a relatively unexplored field and studies focusing on collaborative innovation between start-ups with large companies seen from the former’s point…
Abstract
Purpose
Open innovation in start-ups is a relatively unexplored field and studies focusing on collaborative innovation between start-ups with large companies seen from the former’s point of view are virtually inexistent. The authors address this gap in an exploratory study built on in-depth case studies. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how start-ups successfully organize and manage open innovation with large companies. The paper highlights common challenges and barriers faced by start-ups in adopting open innovation practices along with its benefits for them.
Design/methodology/approach
This is an exploratory study based on two case studies. The cases are diligently selected to examine two key forms of open innovation – inbound and outbound open innovation – in start-ups.
Findings
The paper provides an insight on how start-ups organize and manage open innovation activities with large companies and how it benefits them in overcoming liability of newness and smallness. The practices significantly differ from those followed in large companies. The paper highlights the advantages and challenges of inbound and outbound open innovation for start-ups. This paper also ascertains the crucial role of start-up manager for successful implementation of open innovation and shows how start-up’s managers with prior experience of working in/with a large company can proficiently deal with the larger counterpart in the innovation network.
Research limitations/implications
This research is based on exploratory case studies so the conclusions drawn from these two cases may be hard to generalize. The findings of the study could be used for further development of the theoretical framework. Future research, including quantitative studies, will be helpful in examining the conclusions and providing more in-depth understanding of open innovation in start-ups.
Practical implications
The paper includes several practical implications for the managers including the role start-up managers play in organizing and managing open innovation activities. Furthermore, this paper suggests how start-ups could orchestrate open innovation ecosystem.
Originality/value
The paper is a step forward in filling the literature gap about open innovation and start-ups with some definite implications for start-up managers. A lot is written about the collaboration between large firms and start-ups from a former’s point of view but the start-up’s perspective has been left unexplored.
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María Isabel Roldán Bravo, Francisco Javier Lloréns Montes and Antonia Ruiz Moreno
This study aims to use expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT) to investigate how an organization’s satisfaction with its supply network’s behavior influences its intention to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to use expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT) to investigate how an organization’s satisfaction with its supply network’s behavior influences its intention to open innovation with that network. This paper proposes that an organization’s orientation to open innovation is influenced by confirmation of previously held expectations of trust and commitment and level of perceived procedural justice in its open innovation partner. This paper also examines the effect of this orientation on the organization’s supply chain competence.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data from a survey of 286 European firms, the study proposes and evaluates a structural equation model.
Findings
The results show that a positive disconfirmation of trust (where perceived trust exceeds expectations) plays a crucial role in shaping organizations’ intentions to continue open innovation with their supply networks. These results show that disconfirmation is a good predictor of overall satisfaction with open innovation. This paper also confirms the positive effect of orientation to open innovation on supply chain competence. Finally, this paper obtained evidence for the positive effect of supply chain competence on firm performance.
Originality/value
This study shows the importance of managing expectations in open innovation under the EDT. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no previous research has analyzed the consistency between the trust and commitment an organization expects from its open innovation partner and the trust and commitment it ultimately perceives as a factor explaining its degree of orientation to open innovation. Therefore, this research contributes to a better understanding of open innovation enablers and also its consequences.
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David Audretsch, Maksim Belitski and Nada Rejeb
The Brittelstand are innovative, family-owned firms that offer national and international opportunities in the United Kingdom (UK). These fast-growing businesses are…
Abstract
Purpose
The Brittelstand are innovative, family-owned firms that offer national and international opportunities in the United Kingdom (UK). These fast-growing businesses are customer-oriented and proud of family ownership and embeddedness of the businesses within communities. While Brittelstand firms are as likely to deploy open innovation models as non-Brittelstand firms, these firms' engagement with customers in regional and national markets and the ability to benefit from this collaboration contrasts with these firms' willingness to engage in open innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
Using longitudinal data and regression analysis on 13,876 firms with 24,286 observations over 2004–2020, the authors develop and test a theoretical framework of open innovation in the Brittelstand. The authors' model explains the willingness and ability of the Brittelstand firms to engage in open innovation and benefit from it.
Findings
The authors' results show that Brittelstand firms are less willing than non-Brittelstand firms to collaborate with customers and universities, contrasting prior research on family firms, and distinguishing the innovation model of the Brittelstand from a family business model. The Brittelstand firms who are able to engage in collaboration with customers in domestic markets will outperform the firms' non-Brittelstand counterparts in innovation outputs.
Research limitations/implications
In line with other studies, this study is associated with several limitations that open opportunities for further research that replicate and/or extends this study. First, this study is unbalanced panel data and the fact that some firms appear in the model only once from 2004–2020. The longitudinal study will allow to enforce causality of the relationship and examines the dynamics of open innovation in the Brittelstand. Second, the indicator on the extent and mechanisms of collaboration with customers could be better explained and measured, for example, using a scale indicator instead of a binary variable for knowledge collaboration across different types of partners and four geographical dimensions.
Practical implications
First, Brittelstand firms who are less likely to employ open innovation models nationally and with customers. However, those Brittelstand firms who decide to collaborate with customers nationally are more likely to increase the innovation sales compared to those firms that do not engage in such collaborations? This is an interesting and unexpected finding, which means that low willingness of cross-country and cross-regional collaboration for Brittelstand firms is not optimal and engagement in collaboration with customers in domestic markets is beneficial for innovation. Managers and policymakers may use this finding to design and re-design open innovation strategies managers and policymakers with customers within and across regions in the UK. Second, managers may benefit from the integrated view on the two drivers of firm innovation – collaboration with customers and the local embeddedness of such collaboration.
Social implications
The authors' results show that Brittelstand firms outperform the firms' non-Brittelstand counterparts by adopting an open model of innovation with customers in domestic markets. This means that the most dynamic and fast growing Brittelstand firms are those who collaborate with customers for new ideas and innovation.
Originality/value
This study describes the phenomenon of the Brittelstand and investigates the link between open knowledge sourcing across different geographical proximities and partners and innovation outputs. First, the authors contribute to open innovation and resource-based view (RBV) literature in family firms by theorizing and empirically testing the open innovation model for the Brittelstand firms. The authors also debate that the Brittelstand firms should overcome this inertia of willingness to collaborate across heterogeneous external partners and convert regional/national embeddedness of the firms with customers into strengths for greater product innovation. Second, the authors contribute to family business literature by explaining how and why the Brittelstand firms can achieve greater innovation outputs. In doing so, the authors draw on the concept of familiness and local embeddedness.
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Much of the scholarly works on open innovation have significantly highlighted the application of the model in high-tech industries in the developed world. However, how the…
Abstract
Purpose
Much of the scholarly works on open innovation have significantly highlighted the application of the model in high-tech industries in the developed world. However, how the phenomenon applies in low-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries is still marginal and lacks substantive research. This study aims to draw on the network theory of innovation to examine the open innovation orientations of low-tech SMEs in an emerging market context, particularly Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach
The research design used was a qualitative–quantitative approach: the qualitative phase of the study, involving 31 low-tech SMEs, used a multiple case approach through semi-structured interviews and analyzed the interview responses using NVivo statistical tool; the quantitative phase, including 706 low-tech SMEs, also used a survey questionnaire approach and descriptively analyzed data collected using SPSS statistical tool.
Findings
Results disclose that the low-tech SMEs’ employment of the open innovation model are preponderantly driven by commercialization purposes, knowledge acquisition motives, financial motives and strategic motives, whereas their open innovation approaches include inbound strategies (collaboration with suppliers, co-creation/customer immersion), outbound strategies (IP licensing out) and coupled strategies (strategic alliances, contract manufacturing, and joint ventures). Moreover, the findings show that the SMEs’ preferred open innovation partners include suppliers, customers, private universities and non-industry, in that order. Finally, results show that the low-tech SMEs’ open innovation advantages include market gains, strategic gains, knowledge gains, operational gains, financial gains and network gains, whereas their open innovation challenges colossally were collaboration barriers and organizational barriers.
Practical implications
These findings purvey valuable perceptiveness for managers, academicians and policymakers alike; they highlight the importance of open innovation to low-tech SMEs, proven strategies, challenges involved and the mechanisms for effective and efficient adoption of the open innovation model.
Originality/value
The value of this study reclines in the extension of open innovation research from high-tech industries in the advanced world to low-tech SMEs in emerging economies. Results of the study enrich the knowledge and understanding of how the theoretical model of open innovation is adopted and implemented by the low-tech SME sector in emerging economies.
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Davide Aloini, Luisa Pellegrini, Valentina Lazzarotti and Raffaella Manzini
The purpose of this study is to shed further light on determinants of the openness degree to give a more conclusive evidence to the research in the field. In particular, the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to shed further light on determinants of the openness degree to give a more conclusive evidence to the research in the field. In particular, the influence exerted by the technological strategy is still debated, in that evidence on the relationship between the technological strategy and openness is conflicting.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors put forward a structural equation model which enriches the state-of-the-art literature by explicitly testing the interplay among technological strategy, openness (innovatively measured in terms of partner intensity, phase intensity and variety in terms of partners, phases and contents) and innovation performance. Our study relies on data from 415 firms based on a research survey developed in Finland, Italy and Sweden.
Findings
Findings show that openness, if measured in terms of partner intensity and phase intensity, fully mediates the relationship between technological strategy and innovation performance, by suggesting that the effectiveness of a firm’s technologically aggressive behavior is strongly related to the intensification of collaboration with the partners along the innovation funnel. Conversely, openness variety seems to play an opposite role and is influenced differently by partner and phase intensity. This result likely emphasizes how the cost-side of open behavior becomes harder to manage, and thus costly, when it involves too many different types of partners, phases and contents.
Practical implications
Firms that adopt a technologically aggressive strategy are recommended to deeply open their innovation process to foster innovation performance. However, because of the fact that a high level of openness variety could generate some drawbacks, managers should be very careful in the management of different phases, sources and content. Therefore, what clearly emerges is a call to find adequate strategies for effectively managing the collaboration process to avoid the waste of resources and initiatives.
Originality/value
Originality and the value of the paper reside in a more fine-grained definition of the openness concept, which takes into consideration other facets of openness compared to those usually analyzed in the literature, and a powerful statistical model, such as structural equation modeling, offering great advantages and flexibility in matching the theoretical model with the data.
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Chunhsien Wang, Tachia Chin, Yuan Yin Chiew and Cinzia Capalbo
Drawing upon insights from knowledge-based theory and the learning perspective, this study aims to explore safeguarding strategies in open innovation. Geographic diversity and…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing upon insights from knowledge-based theory and the learning perspective, this study aims to explore safeguarding strategies in open innovation. Geographic diversity and collaborative breadth can effectively protect proprietary innovations that limit knowledge leakage concerns.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a cross-industry sample from the Taiwanese Technological Innovation Survey III, which covered 1,519 firms, the authors investigate the conditions under which partnership portfolios affect radical innovation.
Findings
The findings suggest that the partnership portfolio has an inverted U-shaped influence on radical innovation and that this relationship is moderated by geographic diversity and collaborative breadth. This work identifies a balance in the tension between diverse partnership portfolios and knowledge leakage with regard to open innovation activities.
Practical implications
This study provides senior managers with an indication of the relationships between partnership portfolios and innovative knowledge protection, identifying the geographic diversity and collaborative breadth that serve as safeguards to prevent leakages of a firm’s innovative knowledge.
Originality/value
This study makes an original contribution to the empirical exploration of innovation knowledge protection and provides new insights into the field of open innovation. The authors, thus, balance the tension between partnership portfolios and knowledge leakage.
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