ORGANISATIONAL IMPLICATIONS OF OPEN INNOVATION: AN ANALYSIS OF INTER-INDUSTRY PATTERNS

摘要

Although Open Innovation has been a highly researched and debated topic in the lastndecade, many relevant issues remain largely unexplored so far. An interesting question tonaddress is whether and how Open Innovation has a dissimilar impact on the organizationnand management systems of firms working in different industries. The paper investigatesnthis topic using a rich empirical basis gathered through 8 case studies involving largenItalian corporations, which operate in heterogeneous industries. Managers will find annumber of insights about how to streamline the adoption and institutionalization of OpennInnovation practices, taking into account the specificity of the firm and the industry innwhich it works. The empirical analysis shows that some firms tend to leverage exploitativeninter-organizational networks, characterized by strong ties and by the presence of severalnheterogeneous actors such as customers, suppliers and universities. Moreover, theynestablish dedicated units to institutionalize structured and formalized screening processesnfor managing Open Innovation projects. Other firms enter instead into networkingnrelationships mainly for explorative purposes, establishing weak ties with public researchncenters or universities. They adopt more informal, ad-hoc structures and evaluation procedures,nvery often embedded in the already existing R&D departments. The papernexplains that such differences descend from a number of industry-level variables, i.e.,nR&D intensity, strength of the appropriability regime, turbulence and uncertainty.