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Before being open, innovation happened in closed environments often performed by individuals, scientists or employees. However, the expression closed innovation was coined later and not before the paradigm of open innovation became popular by works of Henry Chesbrough [1] and Don Tapscott et Anthony D. Williams [2]
Closed innovation was described in March 2003 by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at UC Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. [1] The concept is related to user innovation, know-how trading and mass innovation and subject of recent research projects [3]
The paradigm of closed innovation says that successful innovation requires control and ownership of the Intellectual property (IP). A company should control the creation and management of ideas. Roots of closed innovation go back to the beginning of the twentieth century when universities and governments were not involved in the commercial application of science. Some companies therefore decided to run their own research and development units. The entire new product development (NPD) cycle was then integrated within the company where innovation was performed in a "closed" and self-sufficient way.
The period between the end of World War II and the mid-1980s was the era of closed innovation and internal R&D. Many R&D departments of private companies were at the leading edge of scientific research. The setup of internal R&D was perceived as a strong barrier for potential new competitors, as large investments had to be made to be able to compete [4]
Often, closed innovation paradigms are set equal to the “Not Invented Here” syndrome sometimes referred to by decision makers: everything coming from outside is suspicious and not reliable. However, there are ongoing research projects [3] and emerging companies [5] that investigate the pros and cons of closed innovation versus open innovation.
Closed Innovation Principles | Open Innovation Principles |
---|---|
The smart people in the field work for us. | Not all the smart people in the field work for us. We need to work with smart people inside and outside the company. |
To profit from R&D, we must discover it, develop it, and ship it ourselves. | External R&D can create significant value: internal R&D is needed to claim some portion of that value. |
If we discover it ourselves, we will get it to the market first. | We don't have to originate the research to profit from it. |
If we create the most and the best ideas in the industry, we will win. | If we make the best use of internal and external ideas, we will win. |
We should control our IP, so that our competitors don't profit from our ideas. | We should profit from others' use of our IP, and we should buy others' IP whenever it advances our business model. |
adapted from [6]
In the 29th Information Systems Research Conference in Scandinavia [7] in 2006 the transition path from closed innovation to open innovation was formally described. As a result, it was found that when seeking to increase customer loyalty and attracting new customers, companies needed to increase customer involvement in research and design (R&D) operation. Brokering and social networking processes lie at the heart of the open innovation paradigm. The technology brokering process model by Hargadon and Sutton (1997) [8] describes the shift towards open innovation.
In business theory, disruptive innovation is innovation that creates a new market and value network or enters at the bottom of an existing market and eventually displaces established market-leading firms, products, and alliances. The term, "disruptive innovation" was popularized by the American academic Clayton Christensen and his collaborators beginning in 1995, but the concept had been previously described in Richard N. Foster's book Innovation: The Attacker's Advantage and in the paper "Strategic responses to technological threats", as well as by Joseph Schumpeter in the book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
A business model describes how a business organization creates, delivers, and captures value, in economic, social, cultural or other contexts. The model describes the specific way in which the business conducts itself, spends, and earns money in a way that generates profit. The process of business model construction and modification is also called business model innovation and forms a part of business strategy.
Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity, realizing or redistributing value". Others have different definitions; a common element in the definitions is a focus on newness, improvement, and spread of ideas or technologies.
New product development (NPD) or product development in business and engineering covers the complete process of launching a new product to the market. Product development also includes the renewal of an existing product and introducing a product into a new market. A central aspect of NPD is product design. New product development is the realization of a market opportunity by making a product available for purchase. The products developed by an commercial organisation provide the means to generate income.
Research and development, known in some countries as experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage of development of a potential new service or the production process.
A science park is defined as being a property-based development that accommodates and fosters the growth of tenant firms and that are affiliated with a university based on proximity, ownership, and/or governance. This is so that knowledge can be shared, innovation promoted, technology transferred, and research outcomes progressed to viable commercial products. Science parks are also often perceived as contributing to national economic development, stimulating the formation of new high-technology firms, attracting foreign investment and promoting exports.
A prosumer is an individual who both consumes and produces. The term is a portmanteau of the words producer and consumer. Research has identified six types of prosumers: DIY prosumers, self-service prosumers, customizing prosumers, collaborative prosumers, monetised prosumers, and economic prosumers.
User innovation refers to innovation by intermediate users or consumer users, rather than by suppliers. This is a concept closely aligned to co-design and co-creation, and has been proven to result in more innovative solutions than traditional consultation methodologies.
Open innovation is a term used to promote an Information Age mindset toward innovation that runs counter to the secrecy and silo mentality of traditional corporate research labs. The benefits and driving forces behind increased openness have been noted and discussed as far back as the 1960s, especially as it pertains to interfirm cooperation in R&D. Use of the term 'open innovation' in reference to the increasing embrace of external cooperation in a complex world has been promoted in particular by Henry Chesbrough, adjunct professor and faculty director of the Center for Open Innovation of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, and Maire Tecnimont Chair of Open Innovation at Luiss.
Co-creation, in the context of a business, refers to a product or service design process in which input from consumers plays a central role from beginning to end. Less specifically, the term is also used for any way in which a business allows consumers to submit ideas, designs or content. This way, the firm will not run out of ideas regarding the design to be created and at the same time, it will further strengthen the business relationship between the firm and its customers. Another meaning is the creation of value by ordinary people, whether for a company or not. The first person to use the "Co-" in "co-creation" as a marketing prefix was Koichi Shimizu, professor of Josai University, in 1979. In 1979, "co-marketing" was introduced at the Japan Society of Commerce's national conference. Everything with "Co" comes from here.
Henry William Chesbrough is an American organizational theorist, adjunct professor and the faculty director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and Maire Tecnimont Chair of Open Innovation at Luiss. He is known for coining the term open innovation.
The Arrow information paradox, and occasionally referred to as Arrow's disclosure paradox, named after Kenneth Arrow, American economist and joint winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics with John Hicks, is a problem faced by companies when managing intellectual property across their boundaries. It occurs when they seek external technologies for their business or external markets for their own technologies. It has implications for the value of technology and innovations as well as their development by more than one firm, and for the need for and limitations of patent protection.
Innovation management is a combination of the management of innovation processes, and change management. It refers to product, business process, marketing and organizational innovation. Innovation management is the subject of ISO 56000 series standards being developed by ISO TC 279.
The InnovationXchange, also known as IXC UK, is a Lincoln, UK-based open innovation services and consulting provider, whose purpose is to identify and create collaborative business, research and policy opportunities.
The idea of technology brokering is to span multiple industries, and to see how existing technologies could be used to create breakthrough innovations in other markets. Technology brokering requires companies to be strong in two areas. As Andrew Hargadon, technology brokering's founder, summarized: "Firstly, the company must have the ability to bridge distant communities, usually when a company can move easily across a range of different markets they have a better view of how technologies can be used in new ways. Secondly, technology brokering involves creating new markets and industries from innovative combinations of existing technology. These two strengths are difficult to have simultaneously because the strong ties the companies have with customers and supplies in one industry prevent the company from moving easily into other markets and experimenting with new ideas."
An innovation competition is a method or process of the industrial process, product or business development. It is a form of social engineering, which focuses to the creation and elaboration of the best and sustainable ideas, coming from the best innovators.
Lean startup is a methodology for developing businesses and products that aims to shorten product development cycles and rapidly discover if a proposed business model is viable; this is achieved by adopting a combination of business-hypothesis-driven experimentation, iterative product releases, and validated learning. Lean startup emphasizes customer feedback over intuition and flexibility over planning. This methodology enables recovery from failures more often than traditional ways of product development.
Living labs are open innovation ecosystems in real-life environments using iterative feedback processes throughout a lifecycle approach of an innovation to create sustainable impact. They focus on co-creation, rapid prototyping & testing and scaling-up innovations & businesses, providing joint-value to the involved stakeholders. In this context, living labs operate as intermediaries/orchestrators among citizens, research organisations, companies and government agencies/levels.
Innovation Intermediaries is a concept in innovation studies to help understand the role of firms, agencies and individuals that facilitate innovation by providing the bridging, brokering, knowledge transfer necessary to bring together the range of different organisations and knowledge needed to create successful innovation. The term open innovation intermediaries was used for this concept by Henry Chesbrough in his 2006 book as "companies that help other companies implement various facets of open innovation".
Communities that support innovation have been referred to as communities of innovation (CoI), communities for innovation, innovation communities, open innovation communities, and communities of creation.