International Journal of Innovation Management

Open innovation holds great potential for improving the efficiency of companies' innovation processes, but also presents substantial risks. A key issue in innovation management is finding the right balance of openness, i.e., determining how open companies should be in their innovation activities. However, academics and business practitioners hold conflicting notions of what constitutes open innovation practice and of how "open innovation companies" are defined. In this paper, we present three in-depth case studies of global R&D-intensive companies, where we find that the firms' perception of their openness differs from their actual situation (as determined by the innovation practices that they apply), and that each company has a different view as to what constitutes open innovation. We claim that resolving conceptual ambiguity and differentiating between openness (as a philosophical aspect) and open innovation (as a way of structuring the innovation process) in research is critical in order to clarify the current state of open innovation research and enable the communication of results to practitioners.

Acquiring and selling knowledge through markets for ideas (MFIs) is a growing trend for organisations embracing the open innovation paradigm. However, the literature has showed that more in-depth studies about how MFIs can be increasingly beneficial for both seekers and owners are needed. Thus, the present study aims at filling this gap by investigating the main characteristics of successful markets through the application of a multiple case studies methodology. Adopting two differentiation dimensions, as closed versus open and internal versus external, four distinct typologies of MFIs were identified and analysed. Accordingly, seven propositions regarding different characteristics of knowledge owners, knowledge seekers, and ideas were posed. The propositions are also referred to the different typologies of MFIs, thus highlighting similarities and differences across the markets. Hence, this work offers a deepening of the understanding of MFIs, by providing implications both to increase the theoretical comprehension of the topic and promote the definition of suggestions and guidelines for seekers and owners.

Cross-industry innovation is becoming more relevant for firms, as this approach often results in radical innovations. However, firms can only benefit from cross-industry innovation if they are open to external knowledge sources and understand how to explore, transform, and exploit cross-industry knowledge. Firms must establish certain structures and processes to facilitate and operationalise organisational learning across industry boundaries. Since Henkel, an international leader in industrial and consumer business, has systematically applied cross-industry innovation and created numerous radical innovations through this approach, I used this firm as a best practice case for analysis. I applied a mixed methods approach to learn more about Henkel's organisational learning process and its subsequent benefits. Based on quantitative data, I conducted a partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) analysis, including an importance–performance matrix analysis (IPMA), and combined these results with qualitative interview data and corporate reports. My results show how Henkel has successfully systemised its organisational learning process and reveal how exploratory, transformative, and exploitative learning can enhance a firm's outcome through cross-industry innovation.

The human side of open innovation (OI) has not been extensively studied; however, when companies develop new products or services, it is essential to foster corporate innovativeness, and managing personnel is a key to this. Human resource (HR) practices are an essential means by which companies can influence and shape the skillset, attitudes, and behaviour of individuals to do their work and can systematise the work of the whole organisation. In this paper, we aim to contribute to understanding the role of HR in open innovation, by analysing the HR practices in companies operating under an open innovation approach. We test our model with the PLS-SEM method, using Smart PLS software. Our findings suggest that personnel education is essential in supporting corporate open innovation strategies. Internal motivation systems prove to be valuable assets to support internal and external openness in OI implementation. High appreciation of personnel and its value to company are important for increasing external and internal openness.

The experience of implementing employee involvement in innovation can be viewed as a bounded opportunity. Whilst long-term strategic benefits could flow from organising participation across the workforce, creating structures that sustain such a culture is highly complex. In effect the "transaction costs" of high involvement innovation limit its implementation. However a number of technological and social developments (such as innovation platforms and company social networks) offer new options in this space which may change this. In particular the "reach" and "richness" trade-off could be changed to permit higher levels of participation in larger-scale projects. Much depends on the ways in which implementation of systems deploying these new approaches is undertaken and the development of appropriate behavioural routines to support them. This paper explores a number of cases within German enterprises and reports early experience along this learning curve.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of internal embeddedness of overseas R&D base, or the relationship with its parent company, on innovation performance of the base. While existing studies that examined the internal embeddedness have paid most attention to control–autonomy dimension, this paper takes into consideration the factors of information, human, and capital interaction between the base and the parent. Through such multi-faceted investigation, we found that the bases with weaker control by parent and stronger information linkage with parent demonstrated higher performance. Moreover, the research result revealed that the human interaction, e.g., the transfer of R&D manager from parent, had a pivotal roles affecting the degree of both control and information linkage. With these findings, it was argued that to balance dependency and independency in the base–parent relationship and to design appropriate human interactions for realising it would be important management issues in global R&D.

Earlier research has put forward the theoretical proposition that R&D employees exhibit different patterns of allegiance — they tend to either develop a unilateral allegiance (to their own firm or to the inter-firm collaboration), a dual low allegiance or a dual high allegiance. It has also been proposed that each particular allegiance type influences these employees' knowledge sharing behaviour. The present paper empirically tests these claims. Analysing original data collected through 50 interviews that took place in 2011 and 2012 in the R&D units of two global firms in Finland, the United States, and China, we confirm that these allegiance patterns exist and there is a relationship between allegiance and knowledge sharing behaviour. We also extend the previous theoretical framework on which the study is based and analyse not only knowledge sharing, but also knowledge protection behaviour.

The competitive landscape where pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies operate has changed radically due to a scientific/technological progress that has revolutionised the process by which drugs are developed. In fact, pharmaceutical industry more and more relies on advances in biochemistry and molecular biology. As a consequence, the number of partnerships between pharmaceutical and biotech firms has grown significantly. Research contributions addressing the biopharmaceutical alliances design have also focused on the optimal timing to sign a partnership. In this paper, we introduce and analyse the effect of competition in biotechnology industry by modelling the decisions of whether and when ally with a pharmaceutical company through a real options game. We find that the timing decisions depend on the level of the competition, synergies obtained through the alliance and contract terms offered by the pharmaceutical company as well. Also, we show that the first mover might not always pre-empt the follower in partnering with the pharmaceutical company.