Pegah Yaghmaie and Wim Vanhaverbeke
Innovation ecosystems have not been defined univocally. The authors compare the different approaches to innovation ecosystems in the literature, the link with open innovation, the…
Abstract
Purpose
Innovation ecosystems have not been defined univocally. The authors compare the different approaches to innovation ecosystems in the literature, the link with open innovation, the value creating and value capturing processes in innovation ecosystems, and the need to orchestrate them properly. In this way, the purpose of this paper is to provide a highly needed, concise overview of the state of the art in innovation ecosystem thinking.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic screening of the literature searching for publications focusing on innovation ecosystems is carried out in the paper. The authors found 30 publications and compared the different approaches to innovation ecosystems: the authors classify them according to industries, the level of analysis, their central focus on innovation ecosystems, whether frameworks are developed in the publications, the main actors, focus on SMEs or large companies, the success of innovation ecosystems and the role of the orchestrator.
Findings
The authors found different approaches to innovation ecosystems in the literature. Some papers look at the link with open innovation, and others at the value creating and value capturing processes in innovation ecosystems, the role of orchestrators, etc. The authors also provide an overview about the industries, the level of analysis, the central focus of the research, the main actors in the networks and the success factors. The authors observe that most publications have been written in Europe and apply to European ecosystems. The approach in Europe is, to some extent, also different from the main focus of leading American scholars.
Research limitations/implications
The authors compare different approaches to innovation ecosystems. This provides a highly needed understanding of the state of the art in innovation ecosystem thinking. There are some limitations as well: the paper only does a literature review, and the authors are not developing a new framework to study innovation ecosystems.
Practical implications
The literature overview is not primarily focused on practitioners, but the tables in the paper provide a quick overview of good management practices for setting up and managing innovation ecosystems.
Social implications
Innovations ecosystems are, in some cases, established to solve major societal problems such as changes in healthcare, energy systems, etc. Therefore, they require the interaction between different types of partners including universities, research institutes and governmental agencies. Studying innovation ecosystems is crucial to facilitate social or societal changes.
Originality/value
The paper presents a highly needed overview of the literature about innovation ecosystems and a concise examination of the different aspects that are studied so far.
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Susanne Ollila and Anna Yström
This chapter asks how we can understand the managerial practices in open innovation, a recently popularized way of organizing innovative work. Open innovation implies opening up…
Abstract
This chapter asks how we can understand the managerial practices in open innovation, a recently popularized way of organizing innovative work. Open innovation implies opening up the borders of the organization, creating a context where conventional steering and managerial tools no longer apply. Utilizing a collaborative research approach, following an open innovation collaboration over 8 years, this chapter outlines the managerial practices that direct the collaboration. These practices are important for meaning making and identity creation in the collaboration and can be understood as a form of authorship, a continuous intervention strategy to manage, develop and change the organizational context.
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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…
Abstract
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.
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Karl-Emanuel Dionne and Paul Carlile
Innovation challenges are increasingly complex, cutting across distributed actors from different disciplines, organizations, and fields. Solving such challenges requires creating…
Abstract
Innovation challenges are increasingly complex, cutting across distributed actors from different disciplines, organizations, and fields. Solving such challenges requires creating the capacities of opening up for innovation to access and develop a greater amount and variety of knowledge and resources. Perspectives on open source, open innovation, and interorganizational collaboration have explored such capacities, but from different origins and scopes of analysis. Our practice-based integrative framework of “opening innovation” helps highlight these differences and connect their relative strengths. Through a critical literature review paired with an analysis of different empirical cases from Hacking Health, a non-profit organization helping drive digital health innovation, the authors reveal the user-centric, firm-centric, and field-centric approaches to opening innovation that progressively connect a greater variety of actors and resources. The authors show how specific new relational practices they produce address the new relational dynamics these connections bring to accumulate more resources for innovation to keep progressing.
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Theories of platform strategy and adoption have been largely derived from studies of their application in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. These…
Abstract
Theories of platform strategy and adoption have been largely derived from studies of their application in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. These platforms vary in openness, with the model of open source software providing the best-known exemplar for open platforms.
This exploratory field study examines the degree to which nine attributes of ICT platforms are applicable to open platforms in biotechnology. Using a combination of interview and secondary data, it identifies three patterns of such biotechnology platforms – IP commons, hackerspaces, and crowdsourced patient registries – and the degree to which these nine attributes apply. It shows the impact of ICT platforms and open source software on open source approaches to biotechnology, and how the latter are affected by the technical, legal, and institutional differences between information technology and biotechnology.
Instead of open source software platforms organized around modular interfaces, complements, ecosystems, and two-sided markets, this study instead suggests a model of open source knowledge platforms which benefits from economies of scale but not indirect network effects. From this, it discusses the generalizability of the ICT-derived models of open source platforms and offers suggestions for future research.
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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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Alenka Slavec Gomezel and Kaja Rangus
The purpose of this paper is to connect open innovation and entrepreneurship literature by focusing on the influence of entrepreneurs’ open innovation mindset and alertness on a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to connect open innovation and entrepreneurship literature by focusing on the influence of entrepreneurs’ open innovation mindset and alertness on a firm’s financial performance in a country that has recently transitioned from socialism into capitalism.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on a sample of 188 entrepreneurs who answered a survey about their personality characteristics in Time 1. In time 2, the authors collected firm-related data from a national database on firms’ financial statements.
Findings
The results show that an individual’s level of open innovation mindset has a positive impact on entrepreneurial alertness. The results also show an important and previously under-investigated relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and firm financial performance.
Research limitations/implications
This study spurs research in the field of open innovation on the individual level of the entrepreneurs who have considerable influence on small firms’ results, and draws attention into the under-investigated innovation and entrepreneurship agenda in a small and transitioning country.
Practical implications
Open innovation starts with an open innovation mindset of entrepreneurs, so entrepreneurs are those who set the open innovation path of firms.
Originality/value
While open innovation triggered interest among business practitioners and management innovation scholars, it remained focused on management topics connected to a broad strategic setting of a firm. However, research related to entrepreneurial companies which benefit significantly from external sources of innovation has received scarce attention, and open innovation on the entrepreneur’s individual level even less so.
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Kristian J. Sund, Robert J. Galavan and Marcel Bogers
In this paper, we reflect on an expanding literature that links theories of cognition and business models. Managers hold in their mind perceptual constructs or schemas of the…
Abstract
In this paper, we reflect on an expanding literature that links theories of cognition and business models. Managers hold in their mind perceptual constructs or schemas of the business model. These guide the process of distinguishing between options and making choices. Those familiar with business model development will easily recognise that the perceptual construct provides only a summary of the business model, and that a more complex conceptualisation of how business model elements interact is needed. The business model is then much more than a visualisation. It is a schematic model of theorised interaction that is created, shaped, and shared over time. The underlying processes of this creation, shaping, and sharing are cognitive activities taking place at individual, organisational, and inter-organisational levels. Theories of managerial and organisational cognition are thus critical to understanding the acts of business modelling and business model innovation. Here we suggest some of the ways that business model and cognition literatures can be connected, present existing literature, and reflect on future avenues of research to explore the cognitive foundations of business modelling.