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.

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.