Open Innovation in a closed world

Abstract

Innovation is a risky process which needs risk analysis and careful planning. A strategy to mitigate these risks is to cooperate and spread risks among different projects and partners. More companies seem to use this strategy and open up development processes on all types of projects. This study focuses on ‘open’ innovation projects and what business models are used if the knowledge and technology becomes available for other actors. This study is specifically limited on the ICT sector because this sector is where more open innovation processes were first initiated and new business model development has progressed further.

To answer if there is a relation between open innovation and used business models, 5 hypotheses are created. They test different aspects of business models and the developed technology with how open the innovation strategy is. These hypotheses are tested by acquiring survey data and interview data from relevant respondents in the Netherlands.

The conclusion is that there is indeed a relation between the used business models and open innovation, but that some aspects of business models have more impact on open innovation than other factors. Specialization for instance seems to have a lesser impact than if a company is a publisher or service focused organization. The last conclusion is that technology characteristics do have an impact on open innovation strategies but to a lesser extent on being a publisher or service provider.