Open Innovation at Project Level: Key Issues and Future Research Agenda

This chapter addresses some key open issues of a project-based approach to open innovation, drawing on the empirical findings and theoretical discussion of the previous chapters. After a brief discussion of the theoretical gaps in the previous literature, we provide arguments in support of the adoption of a project-level of analysis when studying how firms organize open and distributed innovation processes. The chapter tackles two main themes of a project-based approach, identifying fertile avenues for future research. First, it analyzes factors explaining why firms decide to open their boundaries and to organize in-house tasks and outside source activities on a project basis. Antecedents related to the knowledge features of a project are discussed. Second, the chapter draws the attention to the still under-investigated relationship between the project level and the firm level of analysis. It discusses the challenge firms face in managing effectively and efficiently product development projects across boundaries in the short term as well as in building organizational capabilities and knowledge at firm level in the long run.

[1]  Douglas Dow,et al.  Developing a multidimensional instrument to measure psychic distance stimuli , 2006 .

[2]  W. Powell,et al.  Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation: Networks of Learning in Biotechnology. , 1996 .

[3]  A. Prencipe.  Corporate Strategy and Systems Integration Capabilities: Managing Networks in Complex Systems Industries , 2003 .

[4]  Jerry Julian,et al.  How Project Management Office Leaders Facilitate Cross-Project Learning and Continuous Improvement , 2008 .

[5]  M. Tushman,et al.  Meta‐organization design: Rethinking design in interorganizational and community contexts , 2012 .

[6]  K. Clark,et al.  Creating project plans to focus product development. , 1992, Harvard business review.

[7]  J. West,et al.  Open Innovation: The Next Decade , 2014 .

[8]  D. Sjödin,et al.  Open Innovation and the Stage-Gate Process: A Revised Model for New Product Development , 2010 .

[9]  Stefano Brusoni,et al.  Special Issue: Organizational Design: Making Design Rules: A Multidomain Perspective , 2006, Organ. Sci..

[10]  A. Hughes,et al.  Open service innovation and the firm's search for external knowledge , 2014 .

[11]  Paul Henderson,et al.  Do You Need a New Product-Development Strategy? , 2012 .

[12]  Marta Gasparin,et al.  Improving Design with Open Innovation: A Flexible Management Technology , 2013 .

[13]  Claudio Pizzi,et al.  Technology sourcing decisions in exploratory projects , 2011 .

[14]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[15]  P. Brewer.  Operationalizing Psychic Distance: A Revised Approach , 2007 .

[16]  Bradley R. Staats,et al.  Dynamically Integrating Knowledge in Teams: Transforming Resources into Performance , 2011 .

[17]  M. Dagenais.  Application of a Threshold Regression Model to Household Purchases of Automobiles , 1975 .

[18]  Harvey Maylor,et al.  Ambidexterity in managing business projects – an intellectual capital perspective , 2013 .

[19]  Sonja Marjanovic,et al.  Crowdsourcing based business models: In search of evidence for innovation 2.0 , 2012 .

[20]  Blaize Horner Reich,et al.  Knowledge management and project-based knowledge in it projects: A model and preliminary empirical results , 2012 .

[21]  B. Looy,et al.  Interorganizational collaboration and innovation: Toward a portfolio approach , 2005 .

[22]  S. Postle,et al.  Product Innovation Management , 1990 .

[23]  Andrea Prencipe,et al.  The Business of Systems Integration , 2004 .

[24]  Brian Squire,et al.  A CONTINGENT PERSPECTIVE OF OPEN INNOVATION IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS , 2010 .

[25]  Sylvain Lenfle,et al.  Exploration and Project Management , 2008 .

[26]  M. Hobday.  The Project-Based Organisation: An ideal form for managing complex products and systems? , 2000 .

[27]  Ke-Lin Du,et al.  Clustering: A neural network approach , 2010, Neural Networks.

[28]  Brian Hobbs,et al.  Contextualized Project Management Practice: A Cluster Analysis of Practices and Best Practices , 2013 .

[29]  U. Lichtenthaler.  OpenInnovation:rentDebates,andFutureDirections , 2011 .

[30]  Karim R. Lakhani,et al.  Open Innovation and Organizational Boundaries: The Impact of Task Decomposition and Knowledge Distribution on the Locus of Innovation , 2012 .

[31]  Lars Frederiksen,et al.  Project-Based Organizing and Strategic Management , 2011 .

[32]  Jonas Söderlund,et al.  Relating, reflecting and routinizing: Developing project competence in cooperation with others , 2008 .

[33]  Hartmut H. Holzmüller,et al.  The Decision-Maker and Export Activity: A Cross-National Comparison of the Foreign Orientation of Austrian Managers 1 , 1990 .

[34]  Li Liu,et al.  Simultaneous Pursuit of Innovation and Efficiency in Complex Engineering Projects—A Study of the Antecedents and Impacts of Ambidexterity in Project Teams , 2012 .

[35]  Frank T. Rothaermel,et al.  Leveraging internal and external experience: exploration, exploitation, and R&D project performance , 2010 .

[36]  Marcel G. Dagenais,et al.  A Threshold Regression Model , 1969 .

[37]  S. Dopson,et al.  When Does Search Openness Really Matter? A Contingency Study of Health‐Care Innovation Projects , 2013 .

[38]  Jody Evans,et al.  Psychic Distance and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Examination of International Retailing Operations , 2002 .

[39]  Markus C. Becker,et al.  The Limits of Design and Engineering Outsourcing: Performance Integration and the Unfulfilled Promises of Modularity , 2010 .

[40]  Zohar Laslo.  Project portfolio management: An integrated method for resource planning and scheduling to minimize planning/scheduling-dependent expenses , 2010 .

[41]  R. Cooper,et al.  New Product Portfolio Management : Practices and Performance , 1999 .

[42]  H. Perks.  Inter-Functional Integration and Industrial New Product Portfolio Decision Making: Exploring and Articulating the Linkages , 2007 .

[43]  Will Mitchell,et al.  Complementarity, capabilities, and the boundaries of the firm: the impact of within‐firm and interfirm expertise on concurrent sourcing of complementary components , 2009 .

[44]  Kuo-Nan Hsieh,et al.  Open versus closed new service development: the influences of project novelty , 2012 .

[45]  Fukunari Kimura,et al.  The Gravity Equation in International Trade in Services , 2006 .

[46]  E. Huizingh.  Open innovation: State of the art and future perspectives , 2011 .

[47]  Lucio Picci,et al.  The Internationalization of Inventive Activity: A Gravity Model Using Patent Data , 2010 .

[48]  Andrew Davies,et al.  Building Project Capabilities: From Exploratory to Exploitative Learning , 2004 .

[49]  Vareska van de Vrande,et al.  Balancing your technology-sourcing portfolio: How sourcing mode diversity enhances innovative performance , 2013 .

[50]  R. Martin,et al.  Leave‐K‐Out Diagnostics for Time Series , 1989 .

[51]  K. Artto,et al.  That is not how we brought you up: how is the strategy of a project formed? , 2013 .

[52]  Anne Parmigiani,et al.  Why Do Firms Both Make and Buy? An Investigation of Concurrent Sourcing , 2007 .

[53]  Maria Chiara Di Guardo,et al.  Organizing links with science: Cooperate or contract?: A project-level analysis , 2010 .

[54]  A. Davies,et al.  Organisational capabilities and learning in complex product systems: towards repeatable solutions , 2000 .