Why We Need a Tighter Theory and More Critical Research on Open Innovation

The concept of open innovation is currently popular in the management and policy literature on technology and innovation. However, despite the large volume of empirical work, many of the prescriptions being proposed are fairly general, rather than specific to particular contexts and contingencies. The proponents of open innovation tend to offer universal, and often universally positive, prescriptions whereas research suggests that the specific mechanisms and outcomes of open innovation models are very sensitive to context and contingency. This is not surprising because the open or closed nature of innovation is historically contingent and does not entail a simple shift from closed to open as often suggested in the literature. Research shows that patterns of innovation differ fundamentally — by sector, firm, and strategy. Therefore there is a need to examine the mechanisms that help to generate successful open innovation. This book contributes to a shift in the debate from potentially misleading general prescriptions, and provides conceptual and empirical insights into the precise mechanisms and potential limitations of open innovation research and management practice. The open innovation model emphasizes that firms should acquire valuable resources from external firms and share internal resources for new product/service development, but the question of when and how a firm