Conceptualizing Openness in Innovation

Abstract

Although the interest in open collaborative innovation has grown dramatically in recent years, a general conceptualization of openness in firm innovation has remained elusive. In this paper, I have reviewed the innovation management literature to derive time as a dimension in openness. Firms have competing needs between present and future, and their innovation behavior is constrained by their time orientation. I also borrow literature from psychology and neuroscience to derive reality orientation as a dimension in openness. The divided brain theory shows that individuals could be bias towards a stable or dynamic reality orientation which affects their innovation behavior. Hence firms are constrained by the collective reality orientations from their members. The two dimensions in openness affect the sharing and diversity of knowledge in firm innovation. With this perspective, I develop a conceptual model to describe firm's innovation openness into four configurations - perfectionist, platform maker, conglomerator and futurist.