Publication:

Open innovation and organizational innovation: organizational innovation as leverage for open innovation practices and the effect of open and organizational innovation practices on business performance

Open innovation is currently one of the hottest topics in innovation management, in particular since in 2003 it was conceptualized as “the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation and to expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively” (Chesbrough et al., 2006). This concept is based on the idea that the search for innovations is carried out with the participation of external actors (Enkel et al., 2009). However, there is still research to be done regarding the process through which companies incorporate open innovation practices and take advantage of them (Huizingh, 2011). Furthermore, it has been known for some time that innovation involves much more than technology and R&D (Chesbrough, 2007); however the literature available on organizational innovation is relatively scant. Taking this into account, the present work aims to give some insight into the following questions: •How do firms turn their innovation efforts into value and how do they capture part of that value? •How does organizational innovation have an impact on the optimization of open innovation practices? •What are the effects of open innovation and organizational innovation on the business performance? The work addresses the aforementioned topic both through a qualitative and a quantitative research method. As for the first one, an in-depth case study methodology is used. The firm studied is a brake systems designer and manufacturer that underwent a profound process organizational innovation. Also, the context of openness in which the company had already been moving begun to be systematized thanks to the implementation of the new structure. A business model perspective is used to explore the first two questions raised in the introduction. The work will adopt the definition of Osterwalder and Pigneur (2009), the developers of the widely used “Business model canvas” tool for describing and discussing business models. Based on this framework, the work analyzes the process of change undergone by the firm and illustrates how and to what extent the organizational innovation contributes to the creation and capture of value, focusing especially on the way in which the open Innovation practices are leveraged by an appropriate business model design. As for the quantitative research, it is based on the Technological Innovation Survey, provided by the INE. This survey has its origins in Community Innovation Statistics (CIS), produced at a supra-national level. The sample selected corresponds to 1,323 firms from Navarre that completed the CIS for the year 2008. By means of econometric tools applied to the aforementioned data, the work aims to answer the third question posed in the introduction.