Knowledge Brokering for Open Innovation: A Case Study of Innovation Intermediaries

An open innovation strategy is increasingly being adopted by firms in order to leverage external knowledge sources to solve internal problems. However, there are challenges for firms to implement this strategy such as needing to identify, motivate, and manage external sources of innovation. Thus, innovation intermediaries such as InnoCentive are being established to assist client firms (seekers) in leveraging this strategy through recruiting a large pool of external solvers to solve seekers’ problems. However, there is limited research and understanding of how these innovation intermediaries perform and create value for seeker firms. To address this knowledge gap, we conducted an exploratory case study of 4 innovation intermediaries to identify antecedents of their performance. Based on prior open innovation and knowledge brokering literatures, we conceptualized innovation intermediaries as knowledge brokers. Through the case study, we identified three brokering capabilities that affect innovation intermediaries’ performance in supporting seekers’ open innovation, i.e., problem-defining, problem-solver matching, and proposal-filtering. We thereby develop hypotheses linking these capabilities to innovation intermediaries’ performance. Our results are expected to contribute to the literature by explaining antecedent capabilities of innovation intermediaries’ performance and value creation for seeker firms. This study also provides practitioners with insights on how seeker firms can leverage innovation intermediaries for greater benefit. The plan for continuing the study is discussed.