Ellen Enkel

The future of open innovation

Institutional openness is becoming increasingly popular in practice and academia: open innovation, open R&D and open business models. Our special issue builds on the concepts, underlying assumptions and implications discussed in two previous R&D Management special issues (2006, 2009). This overview indicates nine perspectives needed to develop an open innovation theory more fully. It also assesses some of the recent evidence that has come to light about open innovation, in theory and in practice.

The Future of Open Innovation

Institutional openness is becoming increasingly popular in practice and academia: open innovation, open R&D and open business models. Our special issue builds on the concepts, underlying assumptions and implications discussed in two previous R&D Management special issues (2006, 2009). This overview indicates nine perspectives needed to develop an open innovation theory more fully. It also assesses some of the recent evidence that has come to light about open innovation, in theory and in practice.

Creative Imitation: Exploring the Case of Cross-Industry Innovation

In cross-industry innovation, already existing solutions from other industries are creatively imitated and retranslated to meet the needs of the companys current market or products. Such solutions can be technologies, patents, specific knowledge, capabilities, business processes, general principles, or whole business models. Innovations systematically created in a cross-industry context are a new phenomenon for theory and practice in respect of an open innovation approach. While the cognitive distance between the acquired knowledge and the problem to be solved was regarded as a counterproductive factor in older research, recent theory regards it as positively related to innovation performance. Following the latest theory, we examine 25 cross-industry cases to ascertain cognitive distances influence on innovation performance. Our study reveals that there is no direct correlation between a higher or a closer distance and a more explorative or exploitative outcome.

Minimizing Market Risks Through Customer Integration in New Product Development: Learning from Bad Practice

Customer integration into the innovation process is about to become a best practice. The leaduser approach has proven to be especially valuable when reducing discontinuous innovation’s market risk. Since the theory of customer integration still lacks a concept and processes, this article illustrates how companies can be helped from a practice perspective to implement customer integration and maximize market safety. Triggered by the results of an in-depth case study, we adapted Lettl’s explorative model of customers’ contribution to the new product development (NPD) process, which was originally developed for the medical technology industry, to engineering companies.

IMITATION PROCESSES AND THEIR APPLICATION FOR BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION: AN EXPLORATIVE STUDY

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the approach of imitation (across industry boundaries) on business models. We analyzed nine case studies of firms that introduced breakthrough business models by transferring and adapting characteristic business model components of other industries. Our results show that companies can facilitate cross-industry innovation on business model level through a process of abstraction, analogy identification and adaptation. Imitation is realized by deconstructing and mapping business model components based on their contribution to abstract, generic elements of the value proposition. We propose a systematic process model for business model innovation analyzing structural similarities between industries on the level of these abstract elements linked to specific other components of the business model. Firms can leverage this process by transformative learning processes, especially provided through a broad industrial and functional experience of members in business model innovation teams.

OPEN INNOVATION MATURITY FRAMEWORK

Open innovation can introduce new ways of organizing the innovation process within companies, but these new activities and processes naturally require some time to mature and work effectively. Continuous improvement of capacities and results is therefore required (Teece et al., 1997; Winter, 2003). The basic aim of this research was to develop, in collaboration with 15 companies, an open innovation maturity framework to measure and benchmark excellence in open innovation. The open innovation maturity framework that was developed combines metrics in several areas of open innovation to illustrate the expertise of that organization. It can reveal organizational excellence as well as areas of improvement in order to reach the next level of maturity.

Attributes required for profiting from open innovation in networks

When individuals act in open innovation networks, their attributes are specifically crucial in respect of their success or failure to profit from the network. The empirical background of this research was a 16-month investigation of EURADOS, the successful European network for research on radiation dosimetry. EURADOS presently consists of almost 200 members from 52 European institutions in 31 countries. Not all EURADOS members profit equally from its open innovation network. Structural equation modelling provided an answer regarding the personal and organisational attributes that are required to profit from the network in terms of an increase in innovativeness, a reduction in costs and a better fulfilment of tasks in the home organisation. The attributes openness and the possibility to contribute influence the value that individuals derive from open innovation networks equally.

Negative Side Effects of Customer Integration

Customer integration has many recognised advantages, but also entails negative side effects that may impair the success of innovative activities. These negative side effects have not yet been sufficiently investigated. Whereas some may occur within the entire early innovation phase, others are likely to affect only few sub-phases. Each sub-phase, defined in a slightly new way as compared with existing models to meet the investigation subject, has different activities and aims, and therefore requires special integration methods and customer types. On the basis of extensive research and empirical studies, the paper illustrates different integration methods, negative effects of customer integration, and measures to avoid them.

Knowledge Networks for Business Growth

The first part of this book contains three case studies which illustrate the idea of knowledge networks for growth. The step-by-step methodology of the second part shows the reader how to build up and maintain these networks. The templates in the last part of the book ease the adaptation of networks for the readers own company or his or her specific business needs.

Understanding a firm’s choice for openness: strategy as determinant

In the corporate landscape, some firms benefit from open innovation whereas others gain more advantage from a closed innovation model. Why do some firms benefit more than others from openness? A firm’s strategy, which includes market and innovation orientation as well as internal structures and processes, is likely to be indicative of an adequate degree of firm openness and a well-considered selection of open innovation approaches. By analysing 25 firms according to three proactive strategy archetypes of innovation management, we identified distinctive behaviours regarding open and closed innovation activities. The three archetypes present an adequate degree of openness, adjusted to each archetype’s strategic characteristics. Innovation managers can learn from this study how to skilfully link innovation models with each other as well as which degree of firm openness may be beneficial in order to reach a desired level of innovation performance. Furthermore, they can understand which open innovation activities are characteristic of a specific proactive strategy archetype of innovation management.