Research in Innovation Management

The emerging research stream on digital sustainability examines how digital technologies enable the creation of environmental and social value. The need to finance the creation of such value calls for a business model perspective that combines value creation and value capture. To extend the digital sustainability literature in this regard, we adopt a microfoundations perspective and argue that the configuration of value creation influences the decision of users to pay for a value proposition or not, which in turn affects organizational value capture. Applying a crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis to 130 smart city initiatives in Switzerland, we develop a three-dimensional framework of business models for digital sustainability. The framework comprises 12 theoretically possible business model types, representing distinct business model configurations. We contribute to the digital sustainability and the microfoundations literatures by analyzing, explaining, and classifying the diversity of digitally enabled business models in the context of smart cities.

To leverage the opportunities provided by the Internet of Things (IoT), product-based companies are exploring new data-driven business opportunities. They may miss these same opportunities, however, owing to data-privacy challenges. These challenges start with the customers of product-based companies, extend to the wider business ecosystem, and continue with the companies themselves. This article identifies 12 data-privacy challenges and introduces 12 measures to address them. These include intuitive recommendations, such as enabling cross-product consent collection, as well as less intuitive measures, such as fostering a can-do attitude in legal units, closing the gap between legal and business initiatives, or implementing a clear process for well-reasoned risk-taking. The following four principles were found to support companies in implementing these measures: (1) letting privacy and data-driven business go hand in hand, (2) putting customers first and turning their privacy preferences into opportunities, (3) aligning risk-management activities with the process of digital service development, and (4) using technology to professionalize legal processes.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will have a substantial impact on firms in virtually all industries. Without guidance on how to implement and scale AI, companies will be outcompeted by the next generation of highly innovative and competitive companies that manage to incorporate AI into their operations. Research shows that competition is fierce and that there is a lack of frameworks to implement and scale AI successfully. This study begins to address this gap by providing a systematic review and analysis of different approaches by companies to using AI in their organizations. Based on these experiences, we identify key components of implementing and scaling AI in organizations and propose phases of implementing and scaling AI in firms.

The goal of an ecosystem is the creation of a value proposition firms could not offer alone. But how are new value propositions being defined in emerging ecosystems? Our study with eight cases yields several implications along these lines: First, how to come up with an initial idea for a value proposition and convince partners to commit to it? And, second, how to setup the iterative process of value proposition adaption? And how to find a way to align both customer and partner interests along that way? Overall, this helps to understand how factors in the early stages of ecosystem development affect its value proposition.

Leading pharmaceutical companies have historically been engaged in all stages of the R&D pipeline, from target identification through to drug marketing, and thus have been termed fully integrated pharmaceutical companies (FIPCOs). In the past decade, externally invented assets gained through partnering or mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have become a prominent component of the pipelines of such companies. Given the long development cycles and the increasing level of collaboration between pharma companies and biotech companies, however, the precise origins of innovation are not obvious, in part as regulatory approvals for innovative drugs by agencies such as the FDA are granted to the company filing the applications, which is not necessarily the company that discovered the active pharmaceutical ingredient. Understanding the origins of innovation provides a deeper understanding of the pharma business model and could support strategic improvements. We therefore systematically assessed the origins of innovation for all new molecular entities (NMEs) and new therapeutic biologics (NTBs) approved between 2015 and 2021 by the Center of Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the top 20 biopharma companies globally by sales in 2020 (see Supplementary information for details).

Organizational members must constantly confront and manage numerous paradoxical tensions inherent in organizational life, such as exploration and exploitation. Although prior research suggests that a paradox mindset helps individuals navigate such tensions, we know little about how paradoxical leaders might engender such a mindset in their followers. To shed light on this issue, we differentiate between cognitive and behavioral influences on followers' paradox mindset development. Drawing on primary data from 273 employees, our study indicates that the two influences are interrelated, with behavioral mechanisms mediating the effects of cognitive mechanisms. Our study advances extant theory by providing insights into how paradoxical leaders guide employees to situationally engage with specific paradoxical tensions and influence followers’ paradox mindset in general.

Are stakeholder management and innovation substitutes or complements in affecting firm performance? Extant research provides support for both positions and thus leaves us with a puzzle. We conduct an exploratory fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 204 publicly listed European firms combining survey and archival data to formulate theory on how stakeholder management and innovation work (in)effectively together. Distinguishing between internal and external stakeholders and exploitative and exploratory innovation, we elaborate that managing for stakeholders and innovation can be both substitutes and complements depending on a set of contingencies. We discuss boundary conditions and implications for future research.

R&D productivity continues to be the industry's grand challenge. We analyzed the R&D input, output, and outcome of 16 leading research-based pharmaceutical companies over 20 years (2001-2020). Our analysis shows that pharma companies increased their R&D spending at a compound annual growth rate of 6% (2001-2020) to an average R&D expenditure per company of $6.7 billion (2020). The companies in our investigation launched 251 new drugs representing 46% of all CDER-related FDA approvals in the past 20 years. The average R&D efficiency of big pharma was $6.16 billion total R&D expenditures per new drug. Almost half of the leading companies needed to compensate for their negative R&D productivity through mergers and acquisitions.

This study examines whether employees’ private environmental orientation matters for the economic performance of their firms. It argues that employees’ private environmental orientation affects not only their pro-environmental and pro-social behavior (PEPSB) in the workplace but also their inclination to make suggestions for improvements (i.e., their voice behavior). It also contends that their voice behavior is not limited to suggestions rooted in PEPSB but includes suggestions for other economically attractive improvements besides pro-environmental and pro-social improvements. This study further maintains that firms can support the transformation of employees’ private environmental orientation into voice behavior at work by influencing employees’ perception of the firm. Specifically, it posits that an employee’s private environmental orientation leads to more suggestions for economically attractive improvements at work, the more she or he perceives the company to emphasize sustainability. An analysis of 283 employees in the hospitality industry provides strong support for our theoretical account.

While innovations and new technologies are often pivotal to the long-term prosperity of firms, such firm-level outcomes emerge from the actions and interactions of organizational members who develop innovations and use new technologies. The “microfoundations movement” seeks to understand how micro-level (e.g., individual) actions and interactions lead to macro-level (e.g., organizational) outcomes and mediate relations between macro-level variables. Although the movement has grown tremendously over the last decade, it has yet to deeply pervade the domain of strategic technology and innovation management. Due to its tremendous growth, it is quite fragmented and dispersed, which impedes the identification of the most promising opportunities for future research. To overcome this problematic situation, we conduct a systematic literature review of existing research on microfoundations in the strategic management of technology and innovation, synthesize it into an integrative framework, and chart promising paths for future research. Specifically, we apply a multi-coder, multi-step approach, identify 87 relevant articles published in 23 leading academic journals over the period from 2003 to 2022, and propose a research agenda comprising more than 20 promising avenues for future research based on the resulting insights. These findings have important implications for the academic literature and management practice.

Supporting fast and extensive data transfer, connectivity technologies entail opportunities for stronger inter-firm collaboration and new value propositions, resulting in business model innovation. Whereas prior research has mainly focused on connectivity-induced changes in the business models of ecosystem orchestrators, we turn our attention to (prospective) ecosystem complementors. We examine how digital service providers can configure business model mechanisms to enter an ecosystem and connect themselves to its value proposition. Based on an explorative qualitative study of four cases in mobility, we develop four archetypical connection strategies for complementors. We observe that the four archetypes differ in their implications for the ecosystem value proposition, for the role of other actors in the ecosystem, and the triple-bottom-line performance of the ecosystem. Connectivity technologies can combine economic, environmental, and social benefits.

As e-commerce has increasingly gained traction in the retail market, many traditional “brick-and-mortar” retailers are innovating their business models and making the transition towards digital business models. While scholars have started to examine the influence of digitalization on various business model elements, they have so far paid little attention to its implications on the external relationships in which firms engage for value creation. Building on a qualitative analysis of seventeen interviews, this study develops a two-stage framework for the transition to digital business models. In Stage 1, retailers collaborate with specialized service providers to implement a digital business model. As firms from the retail ecosystem collaborate with firms from the digital-service ecosystem to create a value proposition for end-customers, a meta-ecosystem emerges. In Stage 2, firms (retailers) seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors in the meta-ecosystem. Physical interactions with the digital service providers, the product suppliers, and the customers are a primary means towards this end. Thus, digitalization does not make physical interactions and close personal ties obsolete. Our study has substantial implications for the academic literature and management practice.

Ecosystems are one of the major trends today. They are based on complementarities, which can take the form of supermodularity or uniqueness and appear on both production and consumption side. Different configurations of complementarity lead to different characteristics of ecosystems with different implications. But which configuration of complementarities is beneficial in a given setting and what are the resulting consequences? We study emerging ecosystems driven by the respective orchestrator. Based on a multiple-case study, we show how and why orchestrators are leveraging different configurations of complementarities depending on, amongst others, competition on ecosystem or value proposition level and uncertainty and the resulting challenges for the orchestrator. These insights provide researchers with a better understanding of the basic mechanics of ecosystems and explain why certain types and structures of ecosystems are more likely to be seen in specific environments. For managers, it helps to sketch the development paths for own ecosystems.

An analysis of 21 leading research-based pharmaceutical companies by global sales 2019 regarding their inbound R&D activities between 2015 and 2019.

Over the last decade open innovation (OI) has found its way into and is a widely used R&D model of the research-based pharmaceutical industry.

The depth and breadth of implementation differs greatly across major industry players: While four pharmaceutical companies (Novartis, Otsuka, Gilead, and Allergan) rely more on traditional R&D concepts, the vast majority (15 out of 21 companies) also uses network-based OI models to supplement R&D. And two companies (Bayer and AstraZeneca) have opened their R&D into ecosystem-enabled.

Without fundamental institutional change, such as a change in laws and regulations, many new technologies cannot achieve their full potential. Efforts to induce institutional change in favor of such technologies are, therefore, increasingly critical for innovative firms. To study how German automotive firms induce change that accommodates autonomous driving (AD) solutions, we conducted a case study research encompassing analysis of 31 interviews, internal archival documents, and media data. Taking the firm as the level of analysis, we identify ten practices employed by innovating incumbents in the three steps of creating saliency for change, mitigating reservations against the desired change, and institutionalizing it. We find that these practices involve shaping-oriented and adaptation-oriented knowledge flows. Through the combined use of these practices throughout the three steps, firms ‘open up’ their development process, utilizing purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to advance innovation. Our findings contribute to the literature on open innovation and institutional entrepreneurship and suggest that future open innovation research can profit from adopting an institutional entrepreneurship perspective.

This paper depicts smart city initiatives as hybrid organizations that incorporate competing institutional logics. These logics are not equally pronounced across initiatives. The salience of the logics affects initiatives’ selective coupling with economic, social, and environmental sustainability and, hence, their triple-layered sustainability performance. We suggest that the performance-related selective coupling is driven by two mechanisms: leveraging experience and seeking legitimacy. An empirical analysis of 251 initiatives supports our arguments. In line with the theory of selective coupling, we further find that initiatives embedded in a market logic display better overall sustainability performance than those embedded in a social welfare logic.

Contrary to existing literature, startups can be successful orchestrators of ecosystems. Based on nine qualitative case studies, this article introduces four archetypes that shed light on how a startup can fulfill the tasks of an orchestrator and overcome challenges. The findings identify dimensions of standardization/customization and sources of value creation as defining the role of ecosystem orchestrators and demonstrate the consequences for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), corporates, investors, and accelerators involved in such ecosystems.

Ecosystems are formed by organisations that jointly create a value proposition that a single firm could not create in isolation. To deliver this value proposition, the partners need a focal firm, the orchestrator, to be align them towards the joint value proposition. Thus, how orchestrators design the alignment structure of an ecosystem is at the very heart of the ecosystem concept – yet it has not been sufficiently addressed by extant research. This is all the more true for the question of how the design of an ecosystem is shaped depending on surrounding conditions. This paper applies a qualitative study with ten cases and, based on the attention-based view of the firm, contributes to research on ecosystems in several ways. First, it explains which ecosystem designs are beneficial under which conditions. Second, it elucidates the structure and activities within ecosystems and shows that start-ups can be just as good ecosystem orchestrators as incumbents. Third, it explains the circumstances under which single vs. multi orchestrator ecosystems occur. Fourth, it presents the conditions when incumbents or start-ups make better orchestrators. Finally, it is among the first studies to apply the attention-based view to business ecosystems, and shows that doing so yields intriguing insights into this emerging field of research.

Scholars have recently argued that startups and incumbents play differential roles in the disruptive transformations of industries toward sustainability and that the transformations are only likely to succeed if both startups and incumbents contribute. To understand their respective contributions and, thus, to understand how industries make the transition toward sustainability, comparative studies of incumbents versus startups during this transformation have been identified as a central pursuit, but yet they are mostly lacking. Since business models have become a principal way of characterizing firms, the present study takes a business model perspective and derives business model archetypes in the electrical power sector from an analysis of 280 startups and incumbents in three different countries. The selected countries (USA, UK, and India) represent three different energy profiles and leading instances of disruption in the energy sector. The article, then, undertakes a comparative analysis of startups and incumbents based on the empirically distilled business model archetypes and develops propositions on startups, incumbents, and business models in industry transformations. This analysis produces several important insights. First, incumbents do not seem to engage in less business model experimentation than startups. Second, incumbents have adopted several new business models that are not pursued by startups. Third, startups have espoused some business models that are not pursued by incumbents. Fourth, foreign firms can also affect the ‘green’ transformation of an industry in a focal country. Finally, the identified business model archetypes are likely to be of interest to scholars and practitioners who are seeking an improved understanding of business models in the electrical power industry and the industry’s competitive landscape. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2021.04.003

Without fundamental institutional change, such as a change in laws and regulations, many new technologies cannot achieve their full potential. Efforts to induce institutional change in favor of such technologies are, therefore, increasingly critical for innovative firms. To study how German automotive firms induce change that accommodates autonomous driving (AD) solutions, we conducted a case study research encompassing analysis of 31 interviews, internal archival documents, and media data. Taking the firm as the level of analysis, we identify ten practices employed by innovating incumbents in the three steps of creating saliency for change, mitigating reservations against the desired change, and institutionalizing it. We find that these practices involve shaping-oriented and adaptation-oriented knowledge flows. Through the combined use of these practices throughout the three steps, firms ‘open up’ their development process, utilizing purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to advance innovation. Our findings contribute to the literature on open innovation and institutional entrepreneurship and suggest that future open innovation research can profit from adopting an institutional entrepreneurship perspective. 

Are stakeholder management and innovation substitutes or complements in affecting firm performance? Extant research provides support for both positions and thus leaves us with a puzzle. We conduct an exploratory fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 204 publicly listed European firms combining survey and archival data to formulate theory on how stakeholder management and innovation work (in)effectively together. Distinguishing between internal and external stakeholders and exploitative and exploratory innovation, we elaborate that managing for stakeholders and innovation can be both substitutes and complements depending on a set of contingencies. We discuss boundary conditions and implications for future research.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) reshapes companies and how innovation management is organized. Consistent with rapid technological development and the replacement of human organization, AI may indeed compel management to rethink a company’s entire innovation process. In response, we review and explore the implications for future innovation management. Using ideas from the Carnegie School and the behavioral theory of the firm, we review the implications for innovation management of AI technologies and machine learning-based AI systems. We outline a framework showing the extent to which AI can replace humans and explain what is important to consider in making the transformation to the digital organization of innovation. We conclude our study by exploring directions for future research. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2020.120392

Prominent political and societal stakeholders argue that business models (BMs) are pivotal in making a successful transition to a circular economy (CE). However, the existing CE literature has paid little attention to design choices that allow companies to implement circular business models (CBMs) that meet the requirements of their specific situations. Resource sharing (alternatively called asset sharing) is a key practice in making the transition to a CE. The present article, therefore, seeks to gain deeper insights into the CBMs of firms that orchestrate resource-sharing solutions. For this purpose, it uses a qualitative multiple case-study approach and analyzes nine firms that orchestrate virtual power plants in Germany and Switzerland. Specifically, the article explores the design choices with which firms are faced when they implement CBMs, and it examines different implementation strategies that flow from making certain design choices. The article also identifies transition pathways that enable firms to move between different implementation strategies in order to increase economic and environmental gains. The present article can serve as a stimulus for further detailed analyses of other BMs that are important to a CE in the future.

This study systematically analysed 237 frugal innovation cases in
order to understand the consequences and implications of market choice on the
characteristics of a successful frugal innovation. The results demonstrate that
this type of innovation is disruptive to its respective target market. Further, the
study shows that firms that want to achieve such innovation tend to focus either
on activities along the value chain or the solution (product/service) itself. This
distinction yielded four clusters of frugal innovation, which are described in
detail, including aspects regarding strategy, organisation, processes and
technology.

We investigated the state of artificial intelligence (AI) in pharmaceutical research and development
(R&D) and outline here a risk and reward perspective regarding digital R&D. Given the novelty of the
research area, a combined qualitative and quantitative research method was chosen, including the
analysis of annual company reports, investor relations information, patent applications, and scientific
publications of 21 pharmaceutical companies for the years 2014 to 2019. As a result, we can confirm that
the industry is in an ‘early mature’ phase of using AI in R&D. Furthermore, we can demonstrate that,
despite the efforts that need to be managed, recent developments in the industry indicate that it is
worthwhile to invest to become a ‘digital pharma player’.

Transformation through digital innovation is becoming an imperative for every city. The ‘Smart City’ concept promises to solve the most urgent queries of progressive urbanization in the area of mobility, energy, water supply, security, housing deprivation, and inclusion. Despite the exploitation of existing potential in lighthouse-cities that include Barcelona, London, Munich, Lyon, and Vienna, the less tenacious pursuit of smart city possibilities in the majority of municipalities has resulted in major discrepancies between leading smart cities and those that are less aspirational. Although the necessity of action is frequently recognized, an appropriate path of action remains obscure.

Smart Cities: Introducing Digital Innovation to Cities offers answers, with clarifying examples, to questions that have remained unanswered for many cities. The book identifies and addresses the core elements and potential of smart cities, best practice methods and tools to be implemented, as well as how diverse stakeholders might be effectively integrated.

Based on perennial international research in the field of smart cities, this book brings together the authors' collective experience in practice-based political, administrative, and economic projects to provide a common framework to guide and engage key stakeholders in the transformation and realization of smart cities.

Today, virtualizing pharma R&D is increasingly related with data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), technologies that have been developed by software companies outside the healthcare sector. The process of virtualizing pharma R&D is closely related to the technological advancements that result in the generation of large data sets ranging from genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, medical imaging, IoT wearables and large clinical trials, making it necessary for pharma companies to find new ways to store and ultimately analyze information. As a consequence, pharma companies are experimenting with AI in R&D ranging from in-silico drug design to clinical trail participants identification or dosage error reduction.

Recent research suggests that effectuation principles such as flexibility, precommitments, and affordable loss may differ substantially from one another. Responding to the call to clarify the effectuation concept, our study introduces the distinction between promotion‐ and prevention‐focused effectuation principles. It argues that promotion‐focused (prevention‐focused) principles are positively (negatively) associated with a firm's entrepreneurial orientation (EO). It further argues that causation is also promotion‐focused and positively associated with EO. An analysis of 151 Swiss energy small and medium‐sized enterprises supports this account. Thus, our study suggests that some effectuation principles are more similar to causation in their underlying regulatory focus and their relationship with EO than they are to other effectuation principles. We offer several paths for future research on effectuation, causation, and EO that emerge from these findings.

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This book investigates and highlights the most critical challenges the pharmaceutical industry faces in an increasingly competitive environment of inflationary R&D investments and tightening cost control pressures. The authors present three sources of pharmaceutical innovation: new management methods in the drug development pipeline; new technologies as enablers for cutting-edge R&D; and new forms of cooperation and internationalization, such as open innovation in the early phases of R&D. New models and methods are illustrated with cases from Europe, the US, and Asia. This third fully revised edition was expanded to reflect the latest updates in open and collaborative innovation, the greater strategic importance of venture capital and early-stage investments, and the new range of emerging technologies now being put to use in pharmaceutical innovation.

This study investigates business models for frugal innovation (i.e. a specific form of resource-constrained innovation) in the medical device and laboratory equipment industry in the context of emerging markets. Based on original data from five case studies, we investigate how firms can set up value creation and value capturing mechanisms to reach new customer segments in remote rural areas with unprecedented value propositions. With this research, we contribute to the literature on frugal innovation and business models in emerging markets. It is among the first empirical studies to apply a fine-grained perspective on resource-constrained innovation in emerging markets. In doing so, we focus on its most disruptive form, which is when these innovations entail entirely new applications. We advance and detail the value proposition for frugal innovation in these industries and argue that frugal innovation create new markets. Further, we show how firms set up their value creation and value capturing mechanisms to achieve the value proposition and identify two distinct Research & Development (R&D) strategies for frugal innovation.

This paper identifies technologically reflective individuals and demonstrates their ability to develop innovations that benefit society. Technological reflectiveness (TR) is the tendency to think about the societal impact of an innovation, and those who display this capability in public are individuals who participate in online idea competitions focused on technical solutions for social problems (such as General Electric's eco‐challenge, the James Dyson Award, and the BOSCH Technology Horizon Award). However, technologically reflective individuals also reflect in private settings (e.g., when reading news updates), thus requiring a scale to identify them. This paper describes the systematic development of an easy‐to‐administer multi‐item scale to measure an individual's level of TR. Applying the TR scale in an empirical study on a health monitoring system confirmed that individuals' degree of TR relates positively to their ability to generate (1) more new product features and uses, (2) features with higher levels of societal impact, and (3) features that are more elaborated. This scale allows firms seeking to implement co‐creation in their new product development (NPD) process and sustainable solutions to identify such individuals. Thus, this paper indicates that companies wishing to introduce new technological products with a positive societal impact may profit from involving technologically reflective individuals in the NPD process.

We study the effect of formal organizational architecture on the extent to which a focal subsidiary creates competence that is "useful" to other units of a multinational corporation (MNC). Elements of formal organizational architecture represent levers by which parent firm and subsidiary managers can realize their intentions. Building on motivation theory, we argue that an appropriate organizational architecture stimulates a subsidiary's motivation to create internationally "useful" competence so that its extent of competence creation will increase. We develop and empirically test hypotheses for three specific organizational elements, viz.: a home-base augmenting mission, interfaces with other MNC units, and the subsidiary's strategic and operational autonomy. Unique survey data from 287 subsidiaries provide intimate insights into the internal structure of MNCs and strongly support our account. We close by discussing the implications of our study for the academic literature, management practice, and future research.

Despite the significant role of radical innovation as a driver of firm growth and performance, the consequences of resource constraints for radical innovation outcomes remain unknown. Our paper addresses this gap. We combine arguments from entrepreneurship theory and the theory of recombinative innovation to construct an overarching theoretical framework that argues why resource constraints can promote, rather than impede, radical innovation. We then build hypotheses on two specific resource constraints, knowledge and financial, and test these by a lagged-variable random-effects Tobit model with longitudinal
data from an exceptionally large and detailed innovation survey. Controlling for absorptive capacity, firm age, and firm growth, we find full support for the hypothesis that knowledge constraints spur radical innovation and partial support for the hypothesis that financial constraints spur radical innovation. We discuss the theoretical significance of these findings and point to managerial implications and paths for future research.

Strategic management scholars have long emphasized the importance of innovation for a firm's competitive advantage and performance. However, the current state of knowledge about the strategic management of innovation is characterized by conflicting theoretical predictions, persisting knowledge gaps and theoretical inconsistencies. Adopting a ‘systematic’ approach to reviewing the literature, this paper combines different quantitative methods – co‐word analysis, cluster analysis and frequency analysis – to review 342 articles on the strategic management of innovation published in seven journals from 1992 to 2010. On the basis of these analyses, suggestions are developed for future research which could help to promote future theory development and provide relevant material for policy decisions that managers and executives have to make when they manage innovation.

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Past research on alliances has elaborated on the motives, determinants and benefits of cooperative relationships between firms. Notwithstanding their benefits, alliances entail mutual dependence on partners' complementary resources, and this is particularly true for vertical R&D alliances, where the development of technological innovation depends largely on suppliers' R&D results. In such settings, alliances may be prone to rigidities when it comes to developing breakthrough innovations. This article illustrates how the automobile manufacturer BMW mitigated its dependence on its established suppliers and engaged in a cross-industry alliance with a ‘non-supplier' to successfully develop a breakthrough innovation. Based on the case, we discuss the strategic and operational challenges inherent in cross-industry R&D alliances with non-suppliers. Our findings imply that the success of cross-industry alliances depends on specific actions at the strategic and operational levels.

Institutional openness is becoming increasingly popular in practice and academia: open innovation, open R&D and open business models. Our special issue builds on the concepts, underlying assumptions and implications discussed in two previous R&D Management special issues (2006, 2009). This overview indicates nine perspectives needed to develop an open innovation theory more fully. It also assesses some of the recent evidence that has come to light about open innovation, in theory and in practice.

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There is currently a broad awareness of open innovation and its relevance to corporate R&D. The implications and trends that underpin open innovation are actively discussed in terms of strategic, organizational, behavioral, knowledge, legal and business perspectives, and its economic implications. This special issue aims to advance the R&D, innovation, and technology management perspective by building on past and present studies in the field and providing future directions. Recent research, including the papers in this special issue, demonstrates an increasing range of situations where the concept is regarded as applicable. Most research to date has followed the outside‐in process of open innovation, while the inside‐out process remains less explored. A third coupled process of open innovation is also attracting significant research attention. These different processes show why it is necessary to have a full understanding of how and where open innovation can add value in knowledge‐intensive processes. There may be a need for a creative interpretation and adaptation of the value propositions, or business models, in each situation. In other words, there are important implications for new and emerging methods of R&D management.

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In this article, the authors analyze the field of international entrepreneurship (IE), which is in desperate need of further theory development. They study the field of IE since its inception by offering a comprehensive review of 179 articles on IE published in 16 journals over 14 years, covering the academic disciplines of strategic management, international business, entrepreneurship, and technology and innovation management. From a systematic content analysis of this literature, the authors develop an organizing framework to analyze the field's current status. On the basis of this analysis, the authors can identify theoretical inconsistencies, conflicting predictions, and knowledge gaps that all forestall the further development of IE research. They then develop directions for future research that can help to overcome these obstacles and promote future theory development.

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Cisco is regarded as one of the world's most innovative companies. It does very little research and acquires most of its technology from external sources. After Solow (1957) had found innovation and technical progress to be the main drivers for economic growth, researchers and managers associated the establishment of a strong internal R&D capability with innovativeness. Innovations, after all, were generated by a company's own researchers, the firm's own engineering department realized the transition of ideas to commercial products, and the diffusion and exploitation of innovation was driven by the innovating firm itself.

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Open Innovation is a phenomenon that has become increasingly important for both practice and theory over the last few years. The reasons are to be found in shorter innovation cycles, industrial research and development's escalating costs as well as in the dearth of resources. Subsequently, the open source phenomenon has attracted innovation researchers and practitioners. The recent era of open innovation started when practitioners realised that companies that wished to commercialise both their own ideas as well as other firms' innovation should seek new ways to bring their in-house ideas to market. They need to deploy pathways outside their current businesses and should realise that the locus where knowledge is created does not necessarily always equal the locus of innovation - they need not both be found within the company. Experience has furthermore shown that neither the locus of innovation nor exploitation need lie within companies' own boundaries. However, emulation of the open innovation approach transforms a company's solid boundaries into a semi-permeable membrane that enables innovation to move more easily between the external environment and the company's internal innovation process. How far the open innovation approach is implemented in practice and whether there are identifiable patterns were the questions we investigated with our empirical study.
Based on our empirical database of 124 companies, we identified three core open innovation processes: (1) The outside-in process: Enriching a company's own knowledge base through the integration of suppliers, customers, and external knowledge sourcing can increase a company's innovativeness. (2) The inside-out process: The external exploitation of ideas in different markets, selling IP and multiplying technology by channelling ideas to the external environment. (3) The coupled process: Linking outside-in and inside-out by working in alliances with complementary companies during which give and take are crucial for success. Consequent thinking along the whole value chain and new business models enable this core process.

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