Open innovation through R&D partnerships: Implementation challenges and routes to success

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to describe some of the implementation challenges related to practicing open innovation (OI) through R&D partnerships with different types of partners and ways for companies to successfully deal with these challenges internally. OI has been a hot item in both academic publications and the popular literature in the past decade. Several authors have described the open innovation activities of firms and have delineated various OI options, such as R&D partnerships, technology licensing, corporate venturing, and so forth, and the effects these actions have on the innovative performance of mainly large companies (Chesbrough, 2003; Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, and West, 2006; Dahlander and Gann, 2010). Despite this wealth of attention, several research topics have remained largely un(der)explored in OI research until recently: the relation between OI activities and corporate strategy; the relation between open innovation and internal firm functions, such as the legal department and IP management; and the relation between open innovation and the internal changes necessary to successfully implement these initiatives, to name but a few (Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke, and West, forthcoming). In short, OI literature has remained relatively thin on issues that are related to the management and internal organization of OI. Notwithstanding these shortcomings in OI research, the well-developed body of literature on strategic alliances has put forward many interesting insights as to what companies can do internally to improve the likelihood of their alliance success (see for example the important work of Draulans, De Man, and Volberda, 2003; Dyer, Kale, and Singh, 2001; Kale, Dyer, and Singh, 2001, 2002; Kale and Singh, 2009). Most of these contributions point out that it is crucial for companies to learn from their experiences with alliances, to centralize the alliance knowledge management function within a dedicated organizational unit, and to leverage best practices across their alliance portfolios (Anand and Khanna, 2000; Dyer and Singh, 2001; Kale, Singh, and Bell, 2009).