TY - JOUR

T1 - Managing Open Innovation

T2 - A Project-Level Perspective

AU - Bagherzadeh, Mehdi

AU - Markovic, Stefan

AU - Bogers, Marcel

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Open innovation has become a mainstream phenomenon in the current business landscape. However, despite the fact that innovation projects generally have different attributes (e.g., complexity and uncertainty), most studies on open innovation have only considered firm-level characteristics (e.g., firm size and firm openness) to determine how to manage open innovation successfully. Project-level studies on open innovation management are still scant-There are only a few conceptual and qualitative articles on the topic, and there is a lack of quantitative insights. Based on a survey designed to collect detailed data from 201 innovation projects undertaken by American firms, this article provides a quantitative cross-project analysis of how two, key innovation project attributes (i.e., complexity and uncertainty) are related to five factors for successful open innovation management: 1) openness level, 2) external partner choice, 3) open innovation mechanism choice, 4) collaboration process formalization, and 5) internal firm practices. This exploratory study contributes to the open innovation literature by highlighting the importance of microfoundations (i.e., innovation project attributes) in successful open innovation management. This article concludes by suggesting a number of relevant project-level future research opportunities in the field of open innovation management, and some methodological recommendations on how to address such opportunities.

AB - Open innovation has become a mainstream phenomenon in the current business landscape. However, despite the fact that innovation projects generally have different attributes (e.g., complexity and uncertainty), most studies on open innovation have only considered firm-level characteristics (e.g., firm size and firm openness) to determine how to manage open innovation successfully. Project-level studies on open innovation management are still scant-There are only a few conceptual and qualitative articles on the topic, and there is a lack of quantitative insights. Based on a survey designed to collect detailed data from 201 innovation projects undertaken by American firms, this article provides a quantitative cross-project analysis of how two, key innovation project attributes (i.e., complexity and uncertainty) are related to five factors for successful open innovation management: 1) openness level, 2) external partner choice, 3) open innovation mechanism choice, 4) collaboration process formalization, and 5) internal firm practices. This exploratory study contributes to the open innovation literature by highlighting the importance of microfoundations (i.e., innovation project attributes) in successful open innovation management. This article concludes by suggesting a number of relevant project-level future research opportunities in the field of open innovation management, and some methodological recommendations on how to address such opportunities.

KW - Technological innovation

KW - Complexity theory

KW - Uncertainty

KW - Collaboration

KW - Search problems

KW - Task analysis

KW - Open innovation (OI)

KW - project attributes

KW - project complexity

KW - project uncertainty

KW - project-level variables

KW - BIO-PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

KW - CLUSTER-ANALYSIS

KW - KNOWLEDGE

KW - PERFORMANCE

KW - GOVERNANCE

KW - MANAGEMENT

KW - SEARCH

KW - LANDSCAPE

KW - DIVERSITY

KW - FRAMEWORK

U2 - 10.1109/TEM.2019.2949714

DO - 10.1109/TEM.2019.2949714

M3 - Review

VL - 68

SP - 301

EP - 316

JO - IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management

JF - IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management

SN - 0018-9391

IS - 1

ER -