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1、EditorialOpening up the innovation process:towards an agendaOliver GassmannInstitute of Technology Management, University of St. Gallen, Dufourstrasse 40a, CH-9000 St.Gallen, Switzerland. oliver.gassmannunisg.chCisco is regarded as one of the worlds mostinnovative companies. It does very littleresea
2、rch and acquires most of its technologyfrom external sources. After Solow (1957) hadfound innovation and technical progress to be themain drivers for economic growth, researchersand managers associated the establishment of astrong internal R&D capability with innovative-ness. Inventions, after all,
3、were generated by acompanys own researchers, the firms own en-gineering department realized the transition ofideas to commercial products, and the diffusionand exploitation of innovation was driven by theinnovating firm itself. This was the paradigmaccording to which innovation was likened to anatio
4、nal treasure used to gain temporary mono-polistic profits. Companies rarely resorted tosharing innovative results as a means to generatecompetitiveness rarely in the early pre-compe-titive phase and not at all during commercializa-tion. In the last decade, stronger globalcompetition led to the labou
5、r sharing and coop-eration between firms innovation processes. Inmost industries, agility, flexibility, and concentra-tion on core competencies are now regarded assources of competitive advantage. The do-it-yourself mentality in technology and R&D man-agement is outdated.Conversely, outside-in think
6、ing deliberatelybuilds on external sources of innovation. Openingthe firms boundaries to external inputs in amanaged way enables companies to realize radi-cally new product innovation. Recently, the strat-egy to access knowledge resources externally hasbeen emphasized, as knowledge is growing faster
7、and clusters of highly specialized knowledge areglobally dispersed. External sources of knowledgeand innovation have become increasingly relevant(Porter and Stern, 2001).New information and communication technolo-gies (ICT) have reduced the perceived distancesbetween the actors of the innovation pro
8、cess whileenabling integration of customers and suppliers intothe design and development process. In addition,the technological success of open source software,such as Linux and Apache, has played an importantrole in spreading open innovation thinking.The propensity to cooperate on R&D projectshas i
9、ncreased since the 1980s yet reached a newpeak during the 1990s. As firms replaced theirinternal R&D activities more and more by con-tract research and external development, the aca-demic community (e.g. Rigby and Zook, 2002;Chesbrough, 2003a) began to emphasize theopening of the firms boundaries to
10、 outside in-novation. Answers have been sought regardingthe managerial implications of this shift in focus.Is open innovation the new imperative for creat-ing and profiting from technology as Chesbrough(2003b) stated? This special issue aims to con-tribute towards structuring the topic and openingup
11、 a new debate. In the following, some driversand patterns of the process of opening upinnovation are discussed.1. Trends and streams of open innovationAlthough a trend towards open innovation can beobserved, open innovation is not an imperativefor every company and every innovator. Instead,there is
12、a need for a contingency approach re-R&D Management 36, 3, 2006. r 2006 The Author. Journal compilation r 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2239600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main St, Malden, MA, 02148, USAgarding the management of innovation: Which ofthe factors that drive higher per
13、formance arepreferred by open and which by closed innovationmodels need to be determined. The nuclear andmilitary industries are typical examples of closedinnovation industries in which non-proliferationof technology and protection remain important.The more an industrys idiosyncrasies correspondto t
14、he following developments and trends, themore appropriate the open innovation modelseems to be.(1) Globalization is driven by a higher mobility ofcapital, lower logistics costs, more efficientICT, and increased market homogeneityacross different countries. Globalization hasnot only lowered entry bar
15、riers for new inter-national competitors by decreasing cost pres-sure, but also provides the companies that caninnovate faster and are able to adapt betterwith an opportunity for competitive advan-tage. Global industries favor open innovationmodels because they achieve economies ofscale more swiftly
16、 than the traditional closedmodel and promote more powerful standardsand dominant designs (Anderson and Tush-man, 1990).(2) Technology intensity: In most industries, tech-nology intensity has increased to such adegree that not even the largest companiescan cope with or afford to develop technologyon their own. The reasons are due to the lackof capabilities to cope with all upcomingtechnologies and due to the lack of financingto exploit them alone. Companiesin high-techsector
