Discovering the Nexus between Market Orientation and Open Innovation: A Grounded Theory Approach

The global marketplace is characterized by various changes taking place in social, economic, natural, and technological areas. As these changes occur both at the organizational and market levels, innovations act as the main processes that accelerate the adaptation of these changes to the services/products of the organizations. Considering the involvement of many stakeholders and the partners within the dynamic business environment of the organizations, an increasing need for the cooperation and the coordination of such actors in the development of service innovations is observed. As topical research areas of both the marketing and management disciplines, this chapter focuses on discovering the relationship between market orientation and the open innovation by pursuing a grounded theory methodology in combination with a specific case study of a leading container shipping company. The originality of the research lies on the investigation of the unexplored research field of open innovation from the perspective of the grounded theory methodology as well as the generation of an emergent theory by the use of an inductive approach. Gul Denktas-Sakar Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey Cimen Karatas-Cetin Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey Omur Yasar Saatcioglu Dokuz Eylul University, Turkey