A Bibliometric Review of Open Innovation: Setting a Research Agenda

Through an objective, systematic, and comprehensive review of the literature on open innovation (OI), this article identifies gaps in existing research, and provides recommendations on how hitherto unused or underused organizational, management, and marketing theories can be applied to advance the field. This study adopts a novel approach by combining two complementary bibliometric methods of co‐citation analysis and text mining of 321 journal articles on OI that enables a robust empirical analysis of the intellectual streams and key concepts underpinning OI. Results reveal that researchers do not sufficiently draw on theoretical perspectives external to the field to examine multiple facets of OI. Research also seems confined to innovation‐specific journals with its focus restricted to a select few OI issues, thereby exerting limited influence on the wider business community. This study reveals three distinct areas within OI research: (1) firm‐centric aspects of OI, (2) management of OI networks, and (3) role of users and communities in OI. Thus far, studies have predominantly investigated the firm‐centric aspects of OI, with a particular focus on the role of knowledge, technology, and R&D from the innovating firm's perspective, while the other two areas remain relatively under‐researched. Further gaps in the literature emerge that present avenues for future research, namely to: (1) develop a more comprehensive understanding of OI by including diverse perspectives (users, networks, and communities), (2) direct increased attention to OI strategy formulation and implementation, and (3) enhance focus on customer co‐creation and conceptualize “open service innovation.” Marketing (e.g., service‐dominant logic), organizational behavior (e.g., communities of practice), and management (e.g., dynamic capabilities) offer suitable theoretical lenses and/or concepts to address these gaps.     

Crowdsourcing without profit: the role of the seeker in open social innovation

Crowdsourcing has increasingly been studied as an open innovation (OI) mechanism by which organizations (seekers) engage with an external crowd of potential solvers. Previous crowdsourcing research has focused on solvers and their individual motivations, providing few insights as to why and how seekers use crowdsourcing, and how these choices affect the value that might be realized from these efforts. Prior research has also emphasized profit‐seeking firms, despite the use of OI practices by public sector organizations to achieve societal benefits. This paper examines the organizational and project‐level choices of government agencies that crowdsource from citizens to drive open social innovation, and thus develop new ways to address societal problems, a process sometimes termed ‘citizensourcing.’ Using rich data from 18 local government seekers that use the same intermediary, we develop a model of seeker crowdsourcing implementation that links a previously unstudied variance in seeker intent and engagement strategies to differences in project team motivation and capabilities, in turn leading to varying online engagement behaviors and ultimately project outcomes. Our study compares and contrasts governmental and corporate crowdsourcing to reveal that the non‐pecuniary orientation of both seekers and solvers means that the motives of government crowdsourcing are fundamentally different from corporate crowdsourcing, but the process in our sample more closely resembles that of a firm‐sponsored community rather than government sponsored contests. More generally, we show how seeker organizational factors and choices shape project‐level implementation and success of crowdsourcing efforts, as well as provide insights for OI activities of other smaller, geographically bound organizations.     

Open Service Innovation: The Role of Intermediary Capabilities

This study examines how intermediaries, in general, and those with digital service platforms specifically, engage with clients to help them innovate their services within their service ecosystem. Based on an embedded, longitudinal case study, the results reveal the cumulative development and deployment of technological, marketing, and co‐creation capabilities by intermediaries, and how these capabilities allow intermediaries to engage with clients, so as to enable clients’ open service innovation despite their internal challenges. In turn, this article extends theory on service innovation by clarifying the role and function of intermediaries in service ecosystems in enabling clients to leverage open service innovation. Second, this study contributes to resource‐based scholarship by clarifying how these three sets of capabilities and their micro‐foundations relate to each other. Despite the obvious importance of technological capabilities, online intermediaries are more than just “virtual” service platform providers. The intermediary’s technological and marketing capabilities assist clients in dealing with project‐related and organizational challenges to open service innovation. Acting as a higher‐order capability, co‐creation capabilities—through shaping marketing and technological capabilities over time and also through conditioning their deployment—improve the proficiency of these capabilities. The findings advance insights on the agential role of the intermediary’s co‐creation capabilities, purposefully developed and deployed to foster client engagement, and thus support service organizations in leveraging open service innovation.     

Breakeven Time on New Product Launches: An Investigation of the Drivers and Impact on Firm Performance

The ability to break even faster on new product projects is becoming increasingly critical for firms in fast‐moving industries where continually reinvesting in research and development efforts matters greatly for survival. However, most research to date has focused on studying the impact of two primary innovation outcomes: sales and profits. The exclusive emphasis on sales and profit may be warranted for certain types of goods such as durable goods, but when examining the effects of new products in fast‐moving consumer goods or in the entrepreneurial sphere, where cash to cash matters greatly for survival, it is critical for both researchers and practitioners to not only consider the profits and sales generated by the new product but also the time to breakeven. This paper develops a theoretical framework using the competency‐based literature to examine the effects of innovation drivers (customer idea source, speed to market, product quality, and product newness) on breakeven time (BET) and project profits, and their subsequent impact on firm performance. A three‐stage least square estimation method was employed using longitudinal data on 945 new product development projects and launches in the morning (breakfast) foods category. The results clearly pinpoint that for successful product innovation, managers need to consider the time taken to breakeven on new product development. Specifically, the results demonstrate that speed to market and product quality shorten BET, but customer idea source extends BET. Second, the analysis also empirically demonstrates that BET is an equally effective predictor of firm performance as project profits in the short run, but significantly a stronger predictor of firm performance in the long run (t + four years), suggesting that BET should be regarded as a superior leading indicator of firm performance versus product profitability for fast‐moving consumer goods segment. This is an important finding that suggests firms that recoup their cash investments more quickly experience greater short‐term and significantly more long‐term success.