Removing bottlenecks in business ecosystems: The strategic role of outbound open innovation

Abstract

This paper investigates how firms can orchestrate outbound open innovation strategically to accelerate technological progress among the firms they collaborate with, thus removing technological bottlenecks in their business ecosystem. We examine how a major oil and gas producer fostered, through its internal corporate venture unit, the development of new technologies aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of the oilfield services offered by its key providers. The comparative analysis of five innovative projects suggests that two factors were critical for the successful deployment of the proposed technologies: their potential to broaden service providers' portfolios and the possibility to retain control over the relevant intellectual property. The concurrent presence of these two factors incentivized service providers to deploy the new technologies, aligning their interests with those of the oil major company. By revealing unexplored aspects of the interplay of inter-firm collaborations and open innovation processes, this paper extends our understanding of how firms can align the incentives and activities of other actors in their business ecosystems by strategizing their open innovation initiatives.

Strategic Innovation as a Factor of Adaptation of National Economies to the Development of Global Value Chains

“…The changes taking place in almost all sectors of the economy of most countries in the last decade require multidimensional innovations implemented in the areas of product output, technological processes, organizational structures and decision-makers throughout the supply chain, as well as partners and other stakeholders in society [31]. At the same time, the open nature of innovation is traditionally considered in the context of accelerating the technological progress of partner companies through the transfer of new technologies to them in order to improve the efficiency of the functioning and competitiveness of the chains as a whole [32,33].…”

Research on the Coordination Mechanism of Value Cocreation of Innovation Ecosystems: Evidence from a Chinese Artificial Intelligence Enterprise

“…Madsen [23] provided a foundation for studying a new framework within the cooperation of the global ecosystem for sustainable development and clarified the types of organizational capabilities, practices, and routines that can strengthen both internal value processes and external networks and ecosystems. Moreover, Masucci et al [24] investigated how firms can orchestrate outbound open innovation strategically to accelerate technological progress among the firms they collaborate with, thus removing technological bottlenecks in their business ecosystems. Xie and Wang [25] explored the causal recipes of how open innovation ecosystem modes promote product innovation by using both grounded theory and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).…”

CNR–Fincantieri Joint Projects: A Successful Example of Collaboration between Research and Industry Based on the Open Innovation Approach

“…However, the cooperation between firms can generate critical technological bottlenecks due to the fact that "complementary" firms can have little incentive to invest in developing novel technological solutions that primarily benefit the hub firm [6]. A solution to this paradigm is discussed in Reference [7], where outbound open innovation is proposed to accelerate technological progress in inter-firm collaborations, thus removing technological bottlenecks in their business ecosystem. This model highlights that two factors are critical for the successful deployment of the new technologies, i.e., their potential to extend the portfolios of the service providers, and the control over the intellectual property.…”