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Despite the vital importance of leadership, employees, and their social interactions in the open‐innovation process, there is scarce evidence on the influence and connectedness of different sub‐firm levels related to open innovation. The aim of this study is to explore the influence of leadership influence tactics and employee openness toward others on innovation performance at the individual and team levels. We applied a multilevel analysis on a sample of 85 employees and their 15 direct supervisors/team leaders. We find that leaders’ building open‐innovation coalitions exhibits a positive cross‐level relationship with employee openness toward others and individual‐level innovative behavior, and also moderates the link between the latter two constructs. Additionally, the leaders’ building open‐innovation coalitions variable is positively related to the team‐level scope of innovations and the team‐level innovation implementation phase.

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Although research on open innovation practices in larger and smaller organisations has been growing for over a decade, there has been limited evidence on the topic related to new and candidate members of the European Union. Existing studies of open innovation have predominantly focused on the examination of the phenomenon in companies from the most developed European countries (i.e. EU15). In this research, we examine how absorptive capacity and open innovation interact to impact innovation performance, based on a large dataset of companies operating in Slovenia. We contribute to the literature on open innovation by showing how an organisation's capacity for open innovation can be used to its full potential in order to impact the firm's performance.Obwohl die Forschung zu Praktiken der Open Innovation ("offene Innovation") in größeren und kleineren Unternehmen seit mehr als einem Jahrzehnt wächst, gibt es nur spärliche Evidenzen zum Thema in Bezug auf die neuen Mitgliedsstaaten der Europäischen Union und bei Ländern, die auf den Beitritt zur EU kandidieren. Vorhandene Studien zu Open Innovation konzentrieren sich vornehmlich auf die Untersuchung des Phänomens in Unternehmen der europäischen Länder, die am meisten entwickelt sind (z.B. EU15). In dieser Forschungsarbeit untersuchen wir, basierend auf dem großen Datensatz von Unternehmen, die in Slowenien operieren, wie Absorptionsfähigkeit und Open Innovation bei der Wirkung auf Innovationsleistungen interagieren. Wir leisten einen Beitrag zur Literatur über Open Innovation, indem wir zeigen, wie die Kapazität eines Unternehmens für Open Innovation in ihrem ganzen Potenzial bei der Wirkung auf die Leistungsfähigkeit einer Firma genutzt werden kann.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to connect open innovation and entrepreneurship literature by focusing on the influence of entrepreneurs’ open innovation mindset and alertness on a firm’s financial performance in a country that has recently transitioned from socialism into capitalism. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on a sample of 188 entrepreneurs who answered a survey about their personality characteristics in Time 1. In time 2, the authors collected firm-related data from a national database on firms’ financial statements. Findings The results show that an individual’s level of open innovation mindset has a positive impact on entrepreneurial alertness. The results also show an important and previously under-investigated relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and firm financial performance. Research limitations/implications This study spurs research in the field of open innovation on the individual level of the entrepreneurs who have considerable influence on small firms’ results, and draws attention into the under-investigated innovation and entrepreneurship agenda in a small and transitioning country. Practical implications Open innovation starts with an open innovation mindset of entrepreneurs, so entrepreneurs are those who set the open innovation path of firms. Originality/value While open innovation triggered interest among business practitioners and management innovation scholars, it remained focused on management topics connected to a broad strategic setting of a firm. However, research related to entrepreneurial companies which benefit significantly from external sources of innovation has received scarce attention, and open innovation on the entrepreneur’s individual level even less so.