An Exploratory Study of Open Innovation Practices in Europe and their Impact on R&D Internationalization

Companies have historically relied on large investments in internal research and development (R&D) to drive innovation and provide sustainable growth. This vertically-integrated model, however, is eroding due to a number of factors.

A more open and transnational approach, which Henry Chesbrough named ‘open innovation’, is emerging as an effective alternative to the closed model. The key tenet of open innovation is that not all good ideas will emerge from inside the organisation and not all good ideas generated within the organisation can be successfully commercialized by the same firm.

To date, open innovation concepts and practices have been explored primarily in the U.S., with comprehensive case studies covering numerous American companies such as P&G, IBM, Intel and Lucent (Chesbrough, 2003d; 2006). The aim of this study is to propose a parallel exploration of these open practices in the Old Continent and eventually evaluate the nature of the relationship between open innovation and R&D internationalization.

The findings demonstrate that many open innovation concepts have been actively adopted by various European firms across numerous industries. Representative open innovation practices have been also documented through a descriptive case study on Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands. It has been found that open innovation is not ipso facto a recipe for outsourcing R&D and that there is no a direct relationship between the adoption of its concepts and the increasing phenomenon of R&D internationalization.

Finally, it has been advanced that the research findings could also provide a foundation of empirical evidences for further qualitative research on open innovation practices in Europe.