Maria Elmquist

Exploring the field of open innovation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the emerging research field of open innovation and identify where the field is going as well as suggest future fields of research.Design/methodology/approach – All academic papers and books published until November 2007 under the label of open innovation were systematically reviewed. Also, nine key researchers were asked to contribute with their opinions on the research frontier.Findings – A number of key themes in the research were identified, and conclusions on the underlying structure were drawn. This reveals that there is a tendency towards a broader definition and application of the term, a growing critical perspective, and a concentration on theory development and managerial implications.Research limitations/implications – The paper suggests that the locus of the innovation process and the extent of collaboration should be used as two dimensions in a model to further understanding of how open innovation develops. These dimensions have an important imp...

The Value of a 'Failed' R&D Project: An Emerging Evaluation Framework for Building Innovative Capabilities

In literature and R&D organizations alike, project success consists in minimizing the deviations from set targets in terms of quality, cost and time. The main management task is to execute and monitor progress to reduce risks – assuming that project attributes are known, necessary resources can be estimated and a reasonable time table can be agreed upon. In such a context, evaluating project success is easy. However, in an innovative context, setting project targets initially is difficult and the contributions of the projects sometimes are of an unexpected nature. This paper investigates if projects can be evaluated in terms of how they contribute to the building of innovative capabilities of the firm instead of independently. Based on a case study at the Re´gie Autonome des Transports Parisians and the theoretical framework of innovation fields, a framework for evaluating projects from an additional perspective is proposed. Based on the following four criteria: financial resources, the development of a structured, refined and expanded strategic vision, developed competences (with related suppliers) and identification of knowledge gaps (occasionally with related partners for knowledge production), this framework shows how seemingly failed R&D projects can instead be considered as invaluable to the overall innovation process.

Towards a New Logic for Front End Management: From Drug Discovery to Drug Design in Pharmaceutical R&D

Under pressure to innovate and be cost-effective at the same time, R&D departments are being challenged to develop new organizations and processes for Front End activities. This is especially true in the pharmaceutical industry. As drug development becomes more risky and costly, the discovery departments of pharmaceutical companies are increasingly being compelled to provide strong drug candidates for efficient development processes and quick market launches. It is argued that the Fuzzy Front End consists less of the discovery or recognition of opportunities than of the building of expanded concepts: the notion of concept generation is revisited, suggesting the need for a new logic for organizing Front End activities in order to support sustainable innovative product development. Based on an in-depth empirical study at a European pharmaceutical company, this paper contributes to improved understanding of the actual management practices used in the Front End. Using a design reasoning model (the C-K model), it also adds to the growing body of literature on the management of Front End activities in new product development processes.

Managing Open Innovation: Exploring Challenges at the Interfaces of an Open Innovation Arena

Collaborating with peers to gain access to knowledge is an attractive alternative for organizations keen to improve their innovativeness, and the rising popularity of open innovation has resulted in the emergence of new actors in the innovation process. Previous research focuses mainly on the firms that collaborate with these actors. This paper adopts the perspective of an open innovation actor and the managerial challenges involved. It is based on a case study of SAFER, a Swedish traffic and vehicle safety research unit with 22 collaborating partners. The unit, which is here called an open innovation arena, differs from an intermediary in that it both enables open innovation within a specific field of expertise and envisages itself as a key player in that same field. The case study reveals three types of challenges for the management of an open innovation arena: challenges that arise at the interface with partner organizations, challenges related to collaboration between the partners, and challenges related to the arena itself.

Managing learning in the automotive industry – the innovation race for electric vehicles

Electrification or hybridisation is the main focus for most car manufacturers today. However, it implies large changes both in terms of the vehicle itself (technology and integrated systems) and of usage and business models. The literature on discontinuous innovation proposes learning as a crucial capability, but there are few empirical studies on how this actually happens in firms. This paper discusses the different learning mechanisms used to develop the capabilities related to Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs). It highlights that in this kind of broad innovation field, more advanced mechanisms might be needed by automotive firms aspiring to be leaders, such as market experiments and exploratory partnerships. It also argues that overall learning strategies are necessary to guide the many learning mechanisms involved. The paper contributes to our understanding of how automotive companies deal with disruptive innovations.

Implications of Openness: A Study into (All) the Growing Literature on Open Innovation

Seven years after Chesbrough published the first book on open innovation; the field has literally exploded, and is continuing to do so at an increasing speed. Earlier overviews have analyzed the current status of the field at different points in time. The purpose with this paper is to take this research one step further and analyze gaps in the field as it has progressed up to date, and also discuss the managerial implications of that literature. All scientific literature (as found through major databases) published in English on open innovation has been analyzed qualitatively. The paper identifies current streams in the literature and identifies key issues that future research needs to solve. Compared to earlier reviews, we identify a shift in the direction that the research is taken. The paper discusses why this may be the case and speculates on the future of the field.

Developing Innovation Capabilities: A Longitudinal Study of a Project at Volvo Cars

Many large firms are struggling to alter and develop their organizational capabilities. There are several discussions in the literature on what these capabilities comprise, and that there is a need to develop them. However, less attention has been paid to how companies can develop these capabilities in practice. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to organizational capability theory by providing insights derived from an empirical study of how organizational capabilities for innovation are developed in large firms, and how these findings compare to the theory. The paper is based on a longitudinal study of Volvo Cars conducted as a long-term collaborative research project. The authors were involved in a project called Vision 2020, which extended over a period of two and a half years, the findings from which highlight several activities that enabled the changes required for the development of organizational capabilities. The need to develop ‘management capability’ in terms of both cognition and the propensity to act is especially highlighted.

Radical Innovation in a Small Firm: A Hybrid Electric Vehicle Development Project at Volvo Cars

The potential paradigmatic shift in technology from the internal combustion engine to electric propulsion via hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) has been addressed by most automakers, and has produced very different outcomes. This paper uses the framework of core capabilities to discuss how the small automaker, Volvo Cars, made substantial progress in its HEV development using an approach based on limited resources and a low risk. A comparison with Toyotas successful but very resource-demanding Prius project reveals some factors contributing towards rapid development in a context of limited resources, including focused project objectives, tight collaboration with suppliers of the new technologies, reuse of existing technologies and an unaggressive, bottom-up approach to change the firms values and norms and other core capability dimensions. This paper provides an empirical illustration of how a small company in a mature industry worked with radical innovation in a development project drawing on the combination of organizational slack, entrepreneurial employees and an extensive use of external (knowledge) suppliers.

Design Thinking: Exploring Values and Effects from an Innovation Capability Perspective

ABSTRACT The concept of Design Thinking (DT) is becoming widespread and is seen as improving firm innovativeness. However, studies of the potential value of DT are scarce in the areas of both design and innovation research. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding through investigating how companies that use DT in practice perceive the value it creates in their organizations. The paper builds on an interview study of large organizations in Germany and the US. We find that although some firms identified outcome-related values (such as new ideas, better products), many also underlined other benefits, more related to longer-term effects on competences, innovation processes and the mindset of company employees. We argue that for a company with a strategic intent to be more innovative, DT can be exploited in the development of long-term innovation capability through its contribution to the dimensions of resources, processes and mindset. We also propose the framework of innovation capability to discuss the values and effects of using DT.

The concept of interessement: The story of a power-split technology for hybrid electric vehicles

Innovation processes are out of necessity and by definition always open-ended and embedded in social interests and beliefs. This paper reports a study of how a power-split technology for hybrid vehicles needed and found support and interest from a variety of social actors to reach the market. One of the principal challenges of innovators is to mobilise support and attract interest among relevant social groups; innovations are always, to some extent, dependent on their ability to conform to pre-existing practices and beliefs. Based on a study of a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) project at Volvo Cars, this paper investigates how the concept of interessement can contribute to a better understanding of the innovation processes (Akrich et al., 2002a,b). It concludes that this concept contributes to interesting perspectives on the dual technological and social nature of the innovation process but that the idea of one central innovator driving the process all the way may not always be applicable.