Public funds and internal innovation goals as drivers of formal and informal open innovation practices

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse a firm’s internal and external drivers of formal and informal open innovation (OI) practices. To enrich the analysis and to obtain more robust results, the authors checked the study’s hypotheses using samples from two European regions, Navarre (Spain), classified an innovator follower, and Noord-Brabant (Netherlands), an innovator leader. Design/methodology/approach The sample selected includes manufacturing and service firms that completed the Community Innovation Survey for the year 2008 in both regions. The final sample had 1,288 observations from Navarre and 623 observations from Noord-Brabant. The authors consider two OI dimensions, breadth of information sources for informal OI practices and breadth of cooperation agreement for formal OI practices. Finally, the estimates were performed by means of a negative binomial regression. Findings Results indicate that for the internal drivers, product-related motives to innovate and in-house R&D intensity are strong drivers for both formal and informal OI engagement in general, while the influence of process- and environmental-related motives are context dependence. Originality/value This study distinguishes between formal (i.e. cooperation activities) and informal (i.e. external sources of information used for new ideas) inbound OI practices, while most of the literature has focussed on one single type of OI practice. The use of two samples coming from two different European regions allows observe whether the adoption motives of the OI practices are robust independently from the firms’ location or if they vary across regions owing to context dependence.

Open innovation in the semiconductor industry: analysis of Brazilian design houses

“…The process of open innovation covers several forms of collaboration, some of them more open and interactive, others more closed (Pénin et al , 2011). These mechanisms of collaboration can be established through formal agreements, when the exchanges of knowledge between organizations are established by contracts and formal documents (Cruz-Cázares et al , 2018; Simard & West, 2011); and informal agreements. The last one may result from informal communication between employees or organizations research teams without direct formal ties or formal collaboration (Bönte & Keilbach, 2005; Han et al , 2018; Hannigan et al , 2018).…”

“…The implementation of new business approaches can help the strengthening of this sector, as indicated by Lima et al (2015), innovation is essential for the success of the industry. The open innovation model has proved to be a determinant factor for the increase of innovation and economic performance of companies (Cruz-Cázares et al, 2018), in addition to give opportunities in high-technology and knowledge-intensive industries, such as semiconductors (Chesbrough, 2012;Sydow & Müller-Seitz, 2019). To Dahlander & Gann (2010), the opening of the innovation process is based on the idea that a single organization cannot innovate alone.…”

Relating open innovation, innovation and management systems integration

“…Cruz-Cázares et al, 2012). That is why the next variable to be measured as part of OI is whether the firm has invested or not in external knowledge, which is consequently a dummy variable.…”