15 Best Open Innovation Articles of 2015

2015’s Innovation Management conference (ISPIM) was all about Open Innovation. In fact, it was one of the most keywords – and definitely the most specific one – used amongst all 233 papers presented during the conference. Although the articles are not completely available yet (if you’re not a member), I have used it to draw up a list of the 15 best articles presented on the conference on Open Innovation of 2015 so far. I have added elements of the abstracts here, but following the links you can download the full papers from the ISPIM website.

2015-06-14 21.12.19

Update October 8, 2015: the links to the pdf’s are not working anymore. Please try to download the papers by searching for them on the SSRN or scholar.google.com.

  1. Paradoxical tensions in Living Labs – Seppo Leminen
    This study focuses on three main classes of tensions that characterize open innovation in living labs: management, users, and the way of working. The suggested categorization of tensions into paradoxes is based on a theory review and an empirical analysis of 26 living labs in four countries. This paper proposes that living labs foster emergence of paradoxical tensions and act as a mechanism to reorganize paradoxical tensions.
  2. Open Innovation in Phoenix Industries: Towards a Multinational Study – Marcin Baron
    The intervention is focused on the way innovation is managed in so called Phoenix Industries (clusters of small and medium-sized businesses working with broadly similar technologies that have sprung up in former industrial areas). The issue of open innovation in PIs emerge as a new research concept.
  3. Do SMEs Perform Better When Using Open Innovation Methods? – Tibor Döry
    Our conclusions are pretty much in line with the growing number of publications that indicate it is worthwhile and profitable for the SMEs to use open innovation methods. This is verified by the higher turnover, exports and patenting activity of the SMEs actively involved in open innovation.
  4. Profiting from Open Innovation: an Exploratory Research – Paula Anzola
    This paper aims to answer the following question: how do companies take advantage of coupled innovation practices? For this purpose, three case studies are discussed by means of applying a conceptual framework that structures the coupled innovation process in three areas of relevance: development, integration and commercialization of the innovation.
  5. Sustainable open innovation and its influence on economic/sustainability innovation performance – Elke Perl-Vorbach
    Open innovation and sustainability are contested, but widely used concepts, both in business practice as well as in management science. Based on the results of a quantitative study with cross-industry sampling, this paper explores the correlation between sustainable open innovation and a company’s economic and sustainable innovation performance.
  6. The Role of Organizational Culture in OI Process: Theoretical Framework – Simone Franzò
    Despite within the extant literature the role of “soft aspects” such as Organizational Culture (OC) with respect to the firms’ innovative behaviour have been deeply analysed, with empirical and quantitative studies as well, the role of OC for a successful implementation of OI have been poorly investigated. This paper aims to bring to light which are the capabilities that a firms has to possess for successfully implement all the stages of the OI process, and which is the impact of a firm’s OC in the development and implementation of such capabilities, distingiushing between the different organizational modes through which OI can be implemented.

  7. Open for Business: Universities, Entrepreneurial Academics and Open Innovation – Allen Alexander
    The emergence of open innovation theory and practice, alongside the evolution to a quadruple helix system of innovation, has led to a need for universities to rethink their models of engagement with industry and wider society. One important element in this system is the entrepreneurial academics; however there is a lack of research considering the motivations of entrepreneurial academics, who differ from academic entrepreneurs, to engage in knowledge transfer in line with open innovation policy.
  8. What Skills and Competences are required to Implement Open Innovation? – Daria Podmetina
    Once companies open up their innovation process, the internal structures change, the new tasks and challenges emerge, and employees are no longer expected to have technical-scientific or managerial expertise only but in addition, they should possess certain specific competences and skills. However, the description of these required capabilities often remains vague.
  9. Identifying Open Innovation Capabilities: A Critical Literature Review – Colin Cheng
    The initial results of the literature review show that various capabilities are considered to be important for implementing open innovation. This insight is necessary for managers who intend to increase the openness of their innovation strategies, or who aim for increasing the effectiveness of their current open innovation activities.
  10. Solving Complex Problems with Open Innovation and Collaboration – Christophe Deutsch
    Governments, Institutions, Research centers and companies are facing always more complex problems. This complexity emerges from several outside factors: rarefication of resources, environmental aspects, legal aspects, time constraints, globalization or technological complexity. These problems cannot be solved with a traditional way of thinking.

  11. Knowledge Flows Management: Open Innovation + Triple/Quadruple/Quintuple/N-tuple Helix – Marcelo Amaral
    Innovation is the result of a knowledge creation/application to solve real problems. Open Innovation (OI) and Triple Helix (H3) and its variations (quadruple, quintuple, n-tuple) are models to deal with knowledge flows that enable innovation management in a knowledge based economy. These models allows us to analyze player’ behavior and propose strategies (to firms) and policies (to government and academy) to promote innovation and consequent economic development. Together, TH+OI can be understood as a macro/microeconomics of innovation.
  12. Systematic selection of suitable Open Innovation methods – Mattias Guertler
    The performance of Open Innovation (OI) is closely linked to the selection of suitable OI-methods, such as idea-contests, toolkits or cross-industry-innovations. It directly influences the quantity and quality of gained knowledge as well as appropriate incentives. As studies showed, selecting suitable OI-methods is still a challenge for companies, especially when unexperienced with OI.
  13. Governance of open innovation networks with national vs. international scope – Thomas Clauss
    As firms need to create new products or services continuously, particularly small and midsized enterprises are required to collaborate with different stakeholders in networks in order to share relevant knowledge, distribute risks and improve frequency and performance of new product developments.
  14. Challenges Adopting Open Innovation Practices in a Public Research Institute – Thomas van Lancker
    The preliminary analysis shows challenges linked to team composition such as lack of T-shaped researcher, absorptive capacity and relational capacity, issues related to project design, e.g. tension between innovation development and PhD-research, inefficient steering committees and unclear definition of roles and tasks, and problematic organizational characteristics such as culture causing an unconducive climate for open innovation activities.
  15. Exploring New Aspects of Inbound Open Innovation: the Consolidation Index – Marco Greco
    This article studies an unexplored third approach to inbound open innovation: using the firm’s external sources at the highest degree of intensity. To this aim, it introduces a novel measure of inbound open innovation, the consolidation index. Using a large sample of European firms, this article describes how the consolidation index varies with the firm size, with the innovativeness of the firm’s home country and with the innovativeness of its sector. Finally, it describes its interaction with other inbound open innovation measures and explores its impact on innovation performance.

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