Agnieszka Radziwon

The open innovation research landscape: Established perspectives and emerging themes across different levels of analysis

Abstract This paper provides an overview of the main perspectives and themes emerging in research on open innovation (OI). The paper is the result of a collaborative process among several OI scholars – having a common basis in the recurrent Professional Development Workshop on ‘Researching Open Innovation’ at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. In this paper, we present opportunities for future research on OI, organised at different levels of analysis. We discuss some of the contingencies at these different levels, and argue that future research needs to study OI – originally an organisational-level phenomenon – across multiple levels of analysis. While our integrative framework allows comparing, contrasting and integrating various perspectives at different levels of analysis, further theorising will be needed to advance OI research. On this basis, we propose some new research categories as well as questions for future research – particularly those that span across research domains that have so far developed in isolation.

Creating and capturing value in a regional innovation ecosystem: a study of how manufacturing SMEs develop collaborative solutions

In this paper, we investigate how a set of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) can engage in business model development within a regional innovation ecosystem. We present a case study based on an action research project on how a set of Danish manufacturing SMEs contributed to the development of their local ecosystem in collaboration with a number of external partners. We specifically examine how these SMEs interact with both competitors and complementors in an innovative automation project. The findings include key drivers and challenges that these companies faced while creating and capturing value both for them and the ecosystem at large. We find that the value creation process is enabled by common goals and financial support, while companies need to balance their core activities with their commitment to the joint initiative. Moreover, ecosystem development is centrally dependent on the valuecapture process, which also takes place at the inter-organisational level. Such open innovation process implies a purposive management of knowledge flows at the level of the innovation ecosystem that fits a multi-layered structure of the business model. Through our findings, we link the notions of business model and ecosystems to contribute to the innovation management literature, and to provide practical guidance for future actions within business model and ecosystem development.

Managing SMEs’ Collaboration Across Organizational Boundaries Within a Regional Business Ecosystem

Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) often engage in relationships with external partners that complement their activities in improving their products and services in order to maintain their market share in a competitive landscape. In this chapter, we present a case that focuses on SMEs’ perspective on managing and organizing inter-company collaboration within a regional business. We explore how purposefully managed mutual knowledge flows across organizational boundaries applied by SMEs contribute to the development of the ecosystem they are immersed in. Our key findings include insights into the advantages offered by being embedded within regional ecosystem boundaries, such as low transaction costs and reduced risks of opportunistic behaviors, environmental opportunities for external knowledge sourcing or increase of the sphere of influence. We also highlight accompanied challenges, such as low autonomy and control over the partners and indicate shared issues and responsibilities crucial for further ecosystem development. As a conclusion, we offer a set of recommendations both for managers and policymakers concerning general organizational requirements and governing structures.

Network-based automation for SMEs

The implementation of appropriate automation concepts which increase productivity in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) requires a lot of effort, due to their limited resources. Therefore, it is strongly recommended for small firms to open up for the external sources of knowledge, which could be obtained through network interaction. Based on two extreme cases of SMEs representing low-tech industry and an in-depth analysis of their manufacturing facilities this paper presents how collaboration between firms embedded in a regional ecosystem could result in implementation of new automation solutions. The empirical data collection involved application of a combination of comparative case study method with action research elements. This article provides an outlook over the challenges in implementing technological improvements and the way how it could be resolved in collaboration with other members of the same regional ecosystem. The findings highlight two main automation related areas where manufacturing SMEs could leverage on external sources on knowledge - these are assistance in defining automation problem as well as appropriate solution and provider selection. Consequently, this paper develops and discusses a set of guidelines for systematic productivity improvement within an innovative collaboration in regards to automation processes in SMEs.

The Smart Factory: Exploring an Open Innovation Solution for Manufacturing Ecosystems

Companies, cities, regions and ecosystems are facing increasing challenges due to issues as globalization, competitive pressures, and increased digitalization. At the same time, these issues give rise to an open innovation model that relies on the increased connectivity between various stakeholders to collectively develop better product, services, processes and business models. Such more open models have to support the development of different types of platforms, devices and features that allow for better connectivity, but also create challenges in terms of developing, implementing and understanding such approaches. However, while the emerging literature in open innovation has considered some of these aspects, the notion of openness for process technologies, especially in the context of business ecosystems, is not yet fully understood. With the increasing interest in “smart cities” in the background, we therefore explore how such (combinations of) ecosystems could support a collaborative manufacturing solution — what we may call a “smart factory”.