Open innovation in Dutch (High-Tech) small and medium enterprises : the main executed practices, perceived barriers, and the influence of customer involvement on innovation speed.

(1)

Open Innovation in Dutch (High-Tech) Small and Medium Enterprises

The main executed practices, perceived barriers, and the influence of customer involvement on innovation speed

University of Amsterdam Business Studies Abstract

Master thesis

Version: Final version

Date: 08-11-13

Student: Tanne Tauw

Student number: 5611008

Supervisor: dhr. dr. W. van der Aa Co-reader: dhr. dr. G.T. Vinig

This thesis investigates the importance of open innovation for Dutch (high-tech) SMEs. This has been done by means of two studies. In the first study a survey was conducted at 104 Dutch SMEs on the main executed open innovation practices and important barriers hampering these practices. In the second study six high-tech SME managers were interviewed focusing on the influence of customer involvement on the speed of innovation. Study one showed that SMEs rather prefer informal open innovation due to limited (financial) resources and time, issues with partners, balancing daily and innovation tasks, and issues with Intellectual property. Study two showed that customer involvement causes a slower innovation speed, but has a large influence on the quality of innovation for SMEs. A NPD starter is suggested to high tech SMEs to effectively involve the customer in the NPD process. This starter enables the SME to: 1) better select customers and projects, 2) better manage customer relationships, and 3) better divide tasks of NPD.

(2)

(3)

Open Innovation and Customer Involvement - T. Tauw -- Master Thesis -- 2013

3

Introduction

Nowadays it is seen extremely important for enterprises to capitalize on opportunities offered by technology, changing marketplaces, structures and dynamics (Baregheh, Rowley & Sambrook, 2009). Open innovation is becoming essential for the successful development and implementation of new products (Chesbrough, 2003; Sonnenberg, 1993). Literature on open innovation has mainly focussed on larger enterprises. The influence of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) on this literature however remains rather limited, which is noteworthy since EU SME’s account for 99% of all businesses and contribute about 58% of EU’s gross value added (Ecorys, 2012).

Fortunately, research on open innovation for SMEs has increased in the last years. Results among the first studies show that the formal practices of open innovation (like inward IP licensing, venturing, and external participation) were less popular due to expensive investments, formalized contracts and risks involved (Van de Vrande , De Jong, Vanhaverbeke, & De Rochemont 2009). More research is needed increase the quantitative support in this field to create a bigger impact on the implementation of innovation practices. Elaborating on the previous considerations, the first objective of this study is to answer the following question:

What are the main innovation practices and (perceived) barriers for Dutch SMEs when engaging in Open Innovation?

Given interesting preliminary findings of this study a secondary study was added. Namely, one of the results showed that customer involvement was less frequently used by Dutch SMEs than other open innovation practices. Furthermore, it was also valued lower than other practices, while it is believed that customers are essential for a successful innovation process. A common barrier that came forth from this study is that SMEs usually lack the time of practicing open innovation practices. It could be argued that the involvement of customer is too time consuming for SMEs, resulting in a lower use and value of the help of customers. Given this remarkable finding, an extra objective is added to this study. The second research objective for this study is to answer the following question:

What is the influence of customer involvement on the innovation speed of NPD?

The structure of this thesis is divided in three sections. The first section will cover the first study wherein, at first, previous literature on open innovation, open innovation practices and the

(6)

6 barriers involved with open innovation is going to be discussed. From this literature a theoretical framework, and six hypotheses are drawn. In the methodology section an overview is given about the sample used for this study and how data was collected. Next are the most important results of this study discussed which will be used for hypotheses review. Finally, findings are compared with existing literature and a motivation is made for the second study. Self-evidently, the second section will discuss the second study. A More detailed set-up of this section will be explained later on. Finally, managerial implications, limitations and future research suggestions for both studies will be discussed in the third section.

(7)

7

Study one

Main executed open innovation practices and hampering barriers.

1.1 Current literature

The first study focuses on the open innovation practices and the most prominent barriers in open innovation for Dutch SMEs. First, a short description and the importance of open innovation for enterprises will be discussed. Secondly, the different forms of open innovation practices are discussed. Finally, the barriers of open innovation will be discussed. Based on this literature six hypotheses will be drafted for the first study.

1.1.1. The importance of Open Innovation

Innovation has always been a key driver for sustainable success and growth of organizations. It creates new value for customers by improving existing and developing new products, services, processes and technologies that are more effective than the ones which are already available on the market. Innovation can exist in a closed and an open structure.

Closed innovation

A closed innovation structure is based on the philosophy that successful innovation requires control. It indicates that enterprises generate their own ideas which are then developed, manufactured, marketed, distributed and serviced without the help and resources from outside the organization (Chesbrough, 2003). Traditionally, this way of innovating with internal means was the standard in most organizations.

Open innovation

An open innovation structure, as depicted in figure one, on the other hand, exists when enterprises generate and commercialize both external as well as internal ideas. This is realized by utilizing external, as well as internal pathways to the market (Chesbrough, 2003).

(8)

8 Figure 1: Open innovation paradigm (Chesbrough, 2003)

Socio-economic trends like the growing collaboration between enterprises and their customers, shortening product life cycles and high market dynamics are seen as the foundation for new innovation management (Schroll & Mild, 2011; Grassman, 2006). Before the trend of open innovation, enterprises were investing considerable amounts on internal R&D to increase their competitive advantages with the help of new innovations. Nowadays, the chances of developing competitive advantages by spending more money on R&D is declining considerably (Chesbrough, 2003). Accordingly, many innovative enterprises spend less on R&D and yet they are able to develop valuable innovations by drawing knowledge and expertise from a variety of external sources (Schroll & Mild, 2011).

From closed to open

A closed innovation strategy can have many disadvantages nowadays. One of these is the increasing mobility of knowledge and resources. For example, skilled workers have the ability to switch from employer quite easily. This makes it very difficult for enterprises to maintain and control their R&D investments (Laursen & Saulter, 2006). To cope with this, enterprises need to share their valuable resources instead of keeping them within the boundaries of the enterprise. By exchanging valuable resources it became possible to generate more innovations (Chesbrough, 2003).

Closed enterprises also face the problem of misjudging the value of their R&D projects. False positives are projects that went entirely through the innovation process, but failed to deliver its expected value. False negatives, on the other hand, occur when R&D projects do not fit the business model of the enterprise and are therefore seen as invaluable to the enterprise when in fact these projects could be very valuable for other market parties. Both projects could be

(9)

9 exploited to their fullest potential when they were (co)developed with or by external parties in an open setting (Chesbrough, 2003).

A problem which lies in line with previous is that most internally focused enterprises absorb external sources for internal development, but this does not happen the other way around. By letting unused enterprise technologies and intellectual property (IP) find a way to the market it can lead to new technical and/or market opportunities. In the case of IP, an enterprise can be blocked in its innovation process when an external enterprise owns the intellectual property rights of a technology that is needed to continue the innovation. By cross-licensing these rights new and better innovations can be stimulated (Chesbrough, 2003).

Enterprises need to understand that valuable knowledge cannot be owned by one single enterprise. In order to fully exploit and increase the possibilities of an enterprise’ knowledge it needs to make use of rare external resources which can be found at universities, laboratories, start-up enterprises, specialized small enterprises, inventors and retired staff (Chesbrough, 2003).

Thus, the importance of open innovation is by moving away from an internally oriented innovation process to a more externally oriented process. In this way the enterprise will 1) create the possibility to have more and better access to valuable resources, 2) have the possibility to revive abandoned innovation projects, 3) deploy its unused internal technologies and intellectual properties to generate new opportunities, and 4) create new valuable resources by combining internal with external resources.

1.1.2. Open innovation practices

Within open innovation a distinction is made between purposive outflows and purposive inflows of knowledge (Chesbrough, 2006; Chesbrough & Crowther, 2006). By the term purposive outflows, also known as technology exploitation, enterprises leverage their technological capabilities outside the boundaries of their own organisation. Purposive inflows are related to the innovation activities which capture and benefit from external resources of knowledge to enhance technological developments, also referred to as technology exploration (Van de Vrande, 2009). Maximum value of technological capabilities or other competences can be created when an enterprise combines both technology exploitation and exploration (Chesbrough & Crowther, 2006).There are three conventional ways of conducting technology exploitation:

1) Venturing is defined as the start-up of new businesses based on internal knowledge with the help of the parent organization (Chesbrough, 2003). Supporting a new

(10)

10 venture may also include finance, human capital, legal advice, administrative services, etc.

2) IP licensing makes it possible for enterprises to receive profit from IP when other enterprises find profitable, external paths to the market for this IP (Grassmann, 2006). The decision of an enterprise depends on the anticipated revenues and the possibility of losing revenues when this out-licensed technology is used in the same market (Arora, Fosfuri & Gambardella, 2001)

3) Involving non-R&D workers can give R&D department some valuable insights on for example marketing or finance related matters they are not familiar with (Chesbrough et al., 2006).

Technology exploration can be distinguished in five practices:

1) Customer involvement has been recognised as a useful source for informing internal innovation processes (Grassmann, 2006). Customers regularly modify the original machines bought from their suppliers because they fail to provide the adequate solutions for their needs (Von Hippel, 2005). By involving the customer more often products can be designed and tested better which leads to a higher quality product. 2) External networking includes all activities to acquire and maintain connections with

external sources of social capital. It comprises formal collaborative projects, but also more general and informal networking activities. This allows for quick knowledge exchange without spending large amounts of time and money to develop or acquire these specific knowledge needs (Van de Vrande et al., 2009).

3) External participation enables the recovery of abandoned innovation projects that were initially seen as invaluable projects. Furthermore, an enterprise can invest in start-ups for potential opportunities or it can outsource R&D activities to acquire external knowledge. Both activities are executed on the assumption that enterprises cannot conduct all R&D activities themselves, but they need to capitalize on external knowledge (Grassman, 2006).

4) Enterprises can license IP to benefit from external innovation opportunities to fuel a business model and to nurture and speed up internal research engines (Chesbrough et al., 2006).

Both technology exploitation and technology exploration practices can be subdivided in formal and informal practices. This is based on whether large financial investments and complex legal

(11)

11 agreements are needed to perform the practice. Table 1 shows how these practices are subdivided. Innovation Practices Formal Venturing IP licensing out IP licensing in External participation Outsourcing R&D Informal External networking Employee involvement Customer involvement

Table 1: Open Innovation practices (Van de Vrande et al., 2009) Open innovation for SMEs

Open innovation for SMEs as a separate topic is particularly interesting because of the difference in size and resources these firms have in comparison with multinational enterprises (MNEs). Most SMEs lack the resources to successfully develop and market innovation. Inwards licensing of IP or starting a new venture for example can bring along costs that SMEs simply cannot afford. Therefore, in theory it might seem that open innovation does not fit SMEs. However, one could also argue that this lack of resources is exactly what makes open innovation a necessity for SMEs. Due to their lack of resources, SMEs must seek these resources elsewhere and cooperate with other firms in order to successfully develop and market innovations. These two opposing views exemplify today’s haziness concerning the suitability of open innovation within SMEs.

As stated earlier, open innovation can be categorized into a set of exploration and exploitation activities. The most popular practices of open innovation appear to be those that are more informal and unstructured (like customer involvement and external networking) and which do not necessarily require upfront substantial investments (Van de Vrande et al., 2009). Conversely, more formal practices like inward IP licensing, venturing and external participation normally require large investments, formalized contracts and a structured innovation portfolio approach to manage the risks involved. Formal innovation practices are therefore seen as a bigger risk for companies and are applied less often (Van de Vrande et al., 2009). This argument leads to the following hypothesis:

(12)

12 H1: SMEs engage more in informal than in formal practices of open innovation.

Open Innovation in manufacturing vs. service related SMEs

When discussing innovative SMEs, it is important to make a distinction between the service-, and manufacturing industry. These are two distinct industries, which differ for example in tangibility, separability and homogeneity (Atuahene-Gima, 1996). The manufacturing industry produces physical goods, which are better separable and more homogenous, making it easier to source in new ideas and technologies or outsource parts of the R&D process (Gassman, 2006.). Therefore, one could argue that open innovation fits in better with manufacturing enterprises. Indeed, most research on open innovation has been conducted on organizations that are active in the manufacturing industry. The differences between these two industries are likely to result in different innovation processes. Prior research indicates that service and manufacturing industries indeed innovate in distinct ways due to their different natures (Ettlie & Rosenthal, 2011; Chesbrough, 2006). However, this does not mean that open innovation is less relevant for service enterprises compared to manufacturing enterprises. In fact, recent research on open innovation indicates that open innovation is just as relevant for enterprises in the service industry as it is for those in the manufacturing industry (Lichtenthaler, 2008; Van de Vrande et al., 2009). This is partly due to the fact that open innovation facilitates practices such as collective innovation and crowd sourcing (Sandulli, Fernandez-Menendez, Rodriguez-Duarte & Lopez-Sanchez, 2012). In the service industry customers generally have a more active role in the product chain, which facilitates implementation of these collective innovation activities. Second, the intangibility of the service industry makes scaling easier. Involving many innovating parties in one project is easier when it concerns intangible assets. In addition, Van de Vrande et al.(2009) showed that the open innovation activities by service and manufacturing enterprises are similar to a large extent. One of the few differences in open innovation activities between Dutch service and manufacturing SMEs is that the service SMEs engage in less R&D outsourcing and IP licensing, and even that difference is rather small. For these reasons, it seems plausible that open innovation is just as relevant for service enterprises as it is for manufacturing enterprises.

Where the initial open innovation studies were considered to be mainly interesting for manufacturing enterprises, later studies showed that the service industry can also fit the open innovation paradigm. This study will explore and compare the relevance of open innovation for both industries with the help of the following hypothesis:

H2. Open innovation practices are relevant for SMEs in both the service and the manufacturing industry.

(13)

13

1.1.3. Barriers to open innovation

In order to further optimize open innovation practices SMEs need to to identify and understand their barriers engaging in open innovation. Over the last decade, research has shown various barriers which hamper SMEs in the adoption of open innovation practices. The most important barriers can be divided in the topics: resources, intellectual property, partners and organisational. Below the most prominent barriers from these studies are discussed.

Resources

A first barrier that comes to mind would be that SMEs find it hard to engage in open innovation due to their limited resources. These enterprises do not have the resources to develop innovation programs like large enterprises do. Furthermore, the risk and uncertainty that come with open innovation, and innovation in general, makes it hard to attract investments for innovation projects. This uncertainty conflicts with managers’ tendency to be risk averse (Hausman, 2005). A study on Spanish SMEs found that among 15 barriers, the top 3 were cost related; high costs that came with innovation activities, the difficulty controlling innovation cost, and insufficient financial government support (Madrid-Guijarro, Garcia & Van Auken, 2009). The high monitoring costs that come with innovation projects are a difficulty for organizations low on resources. This holds especially for open innovation since monitoring an employee from a partner enterprise is even more difficult than from one’s own enterprise. Putting up contracts is another barrier to open innovation that leads to extra costs. As opposed to closed innovation, open innovation involves collaborations which usually implies that formal agreements between parties need to be made (Thorgren and Wincent, 2011; Gulati and Nickerson, 2008). Setting up contracts and non-disclosure agreements can be a timely and costly manner, especially for the smaller SMEs that do not have specialists in this field within their organization.

The barrier of high costs is also found to be stronger for smaller enterprises than for relatively larger enterprises, indicating that the hampering effect of cost has proportionally greater impact on smaller enterprises. Van de Vrande (et al., 2009) found a similar result. SME managers indicated both the obtaining of financial resources and the high cost and time of innovation as hampering factors for the adoption of open innovation practices.

Other studies confirmed that a shortage of resources – both financial and temporal – is a significant barrier (Chesbrough, 2010; Parida, Westerberg, & Frishammar, 2012). Given the results of these studies the following hypothesis is defined:

(14)

14 H3a. A lack of resources is one of the prime barriers for SMEs adopting open innovation practices.

Intellectual Property

Literature suggests that the lack of resources is not the only barrier to open innovation in SMEs (e.g. Chesbrough, 2010; Van de Vrande 2009). A second factor, which is frequently cited to be a barrier of open innovation, are the legal aspects concerning the use of intellectual property. SMEs are often not used to dealing with IP. This can become a problem when SMEs engage in collaborations, as is the case in open innovation (Luoma, Paasi & Valkokari, 2010). A key issue for SMEs engaging in open innovation is the willingness to share knowledge between parties involved in an innovation project (Luoma, et al., 2010). Other studies have confirmed IP to be a barrier by arguing that protection of IP can cause problems for SMEs to innovate openly (Chesbrough 2010; Van de Vrande et al., 2009; Tödtling, van Reine., & Dörhöfer, 2011). Related to the financial resource barrier, SMEs often do not have the resources to fully protect their intellectual property (Chesbrough 2010). Indeed studies on knowledge management show that SMEs cannot do this in the same way large enterprises do (Desouza & Awazu, 2006). SMEs usually do not have a legal department as opposed to larger organizations. Getting the knowledge and skills needed to deal with intellectual property and non-disclosure agreements will take them extra time and costs. Therefore, SMEs have to manage their knowledge in more creative ways. Investigating the importance of IP as a barrier to open innovation, the next hypothesis is formulated:

H3b. Legal protection of intellectual property is one of the prime barriers for SMEs adopting open innovation practices, especially for those engaging in IP licensing.

Partners

A third barrier, specifically related to open innovation, is the difficulty than can arise from collaboration with partners. Indeed many studies point to collaboration issues as a barrier (examples are Chesbrough 2010; Tödtling et al., 2011). Partners not meeting expectations, for example is such an issue. When multiple parties are involved in an innovation project it often happens that one of the partners is disappointed in others or cannot meet up to the expectations of other partners (Van de Vrande et al. 2009). The alignment of multiple partners is another issue and an example of an organizational factor that can hamper open innovation. When starting an innovative collaboration SMEs may find it hard to align their strategic objectives. In contrast, managers of a large enterprise are often more used to aligning goals (Chesbrough et al., 2008; Van de Vrande et al., 2009). Aligning partners can cause issues due to difficulties with the

(15)

15 alignment itself or later issues that are a consequence of bad initial alignment. When starting a collaboration, diverging goals can cause difficulties if partners are not willing to adapt to each other’s goals. Also when goals seem clear at first, but later on in the innovation process appear contradicting or unclear, this could harm the open innovation process (Chesbrough et al., 2006). Concluding, this leads to the following hypothesis:

H 3c. Difficulties in collaborating with partners is one of the prime barriers for SMEs to practice open innovation.

Employee resistance

The fourth and final barrier of open innovation according to literature is the resistance of employees of executing open innovation activities. A cause of this resistance is for example the ‘not invented here syndrome’ that employees experience (NIH syndrome, Parida et al., 2012). The NIH syndrome is “the tendency of a project group of stable composition to believe it possesses a monopoly of knowledge of its field, which leads it to reject new ideas from outsiders to the likely detriment of its performance” (Katz & Allen, 1982, cited in Lichtenthaler & Ernst, 2006). As a result employees may show resistance to commercializing ideas stemming from outside the enterprise. Employee resistance in innovation is seen to be related to factors such as corporate norms, bad human resource management, bad management and bad communication within the enterprise (Osterman, 2000, Zwick, 2002). However, despite the difficulties that can arise with collaborations, employee resistance is not very likely to be a major impediment for SMEs conducting open innovation. Recent studies show that employee resistance is not among the largest challenges SMEs face (Madrid-Guijarro, Garcia, & Van Auken, 2009; Van de Vrande et al., 2009). Apparently, employees increasingly understand and acknowledge the need for (open) innovation in their organizations. Another explanation could be that enterprises engaging in open innovation often have a modern character and therefore generally attract modern, open minded employees. The following hypothesis has to determine whether this is still the case. H 3d. Employee resistance is not one of the prime barriers for SMEs to practice open innovation.

Another barrier related to employee resistance, for example, is the lack of commitment of employees. A lack of commitment might lead employees to scale down their efforts needed in order for innovation to succeed (Parida et al., 2012). The study of Van de Vrande (et al., 2009) revealed the following barriers among employees to open innovation in SMEs: additional administrative burdens, lack of knowledge, misjudgements of the requirements of the market,

(16)

16 and the difficulty of balancing daily and innovation tasks. Furthermore the lack of an adequate idea management system might cause difficulties for SMEs, which are less likely to occur in larger organizations (Desouza & Awazu, 2006; Van de Vrande et al., 2009). The literature provides reasons to consider the above mentioned factors as barriers for SMEs engaging in open innovation. However, they are expected to be less important than the barriers concerning resources, intellectual property and partner difficulties.

1.1.4. Framework study one

This study uses the framework as depicted in figure 2, which is constructed on the basis of the literature and hypotheses provided above. To summarize: Informal open innovation practices are believed to be more popular by SMEs than the formal practices that involve more financial investments and legal contracts. Hypothesis H1 will be tested to investigate this. Second, it is argued that the open innovation activities is equally relevant for manufacturing-, and service related SMEs. This will be covered by Hypothesis H2. Hypothesis H3, investigating the important barriers of SMEs, is divided in four sub-hypotheses. When engaging in open innovation there are certain barriers that hamper SMEs activity with regard to the different open innovation practices. The barrier resources (H3a.) required for open innovation is likely to be one of the most prominent barriers. The high costs that come with monitoring, taking relatively large risks, putting up contracts and other open innovation aspects have proven to be a hampering factor for SMEs innovating openly. Second, the issues that arise with regard to intellectual property (H3b.) are most likely to form a significant barrier. SMEs inexperience with IP, lack of a legal department and resources to fund IP protection might hamper many open innovation practices. Moreover, collaboration with other partners (H3c.) might prove a barrier. Aligning with partners, managing mutual expectations and communication maintenance all can take up significant resources and might cause difficulties if not handled carefully. Conversely, the resistance of employee (H3d.) to open innovation activities within the SMEs is not expected to be a large barrier. Employees seem aware of the fact that their employers need to innovate in order to keep the organization alive. The (+) of (-) signs written in figure 2 will indicate the expected relation towards SMEs. For example, behind ‘employee resistance’ is written a minus sign which suggest that SMEs do not experience employee resistance as an important barrier while executing open innovation practices.

(17)

17

Figure 2: Framework study one

H1. Formal (-) Venturing IP licensing out IP licensing in External Participation Outsourcing R&D H2. Industry Manufacturing (+) Service (+) H3. Barriers H3a. Resources (++) H3b. Intellectual property (+) H3c. Partners (+) H3d. Employee resistance (-) Other

SME Open Innovation Practices H1. Informal (+) External networking Employee involvement Customer Involvement

(18)

18

1.2 Methodology

In this section an overview will be given about the methodology of study one. First, a description will be given about how data for this study was collected. Next paragraph discusses the demographics of the sample. finally, research procedure will be discussed wherein the form of data collection is discussed and analysed.

1.2.1 Data collection

The focus group of this study consists of Dutch SMEs in both the manufacturing and service industry that engage in open innovation practices. The SMEs were reached through various platforms for innovative Dutch SMEs such as medium-/high-tech incubators (e.g. Yes!Delft, www.Yesdelft.nl; Dnamo, www.dnamo.nl), the Dutch association of inventors (NOVU, www.novu.nl) and a platform of high-tech SMEs in the Netherlands (MikroCentrum, www.mikrocentrum.nl). Furthermore, social media (Linkedin, Twitter) were used to openly invite subscribers of high-tech- and innovation groups. A group consisting of large enterprises was added as a control group. The majority of the enterprises were contacted by email and telephone. Surveys were to be filled in by a manager responsible for the innovation activities. The data were collected in a period of two and a half months between January and March 2013. The data was collected via Survey Monkey, an online survey tool. Analyses were done using data analysis software SPSS. Variance analyses were conducted using ANOVA and t-tests. Approximately 800 organizations were targeted. In total 125 SMEs participated resulting in a response rate of 15,6%.

Sample demographics

From these participants, 21 respondents did not sufficiently complete the survey and were therefore excluded from the sample. This limited the number of active respondents to 104. Out of all the respondents 63% had a background in the manufacturing industry and 37% operate in the service industry. Small enterprises (10-99 employees) made up for 38% of the SMEs. Medium enterprises (100-250 employees) made up for 11% of the SMEs. Micro enterprises (2-9 employees) made up for 37% of the SMEs. The control group existing of large (250+) organizations made up 14% of the total sample (see the distribution of the sample in figure 3).

(19)

19 Figure 3: Sample distribution

1.2.2 Procedure

To collect the data for this study a structured questionnaire was used. The questionnaire was constructed based on questions used by Van de Vrande et al. (2009). Specific questions on SMEs were added in consultation with innovation experts. The questions consisted out of 5-point Likert scale questions, open ended questions and multiple choice questions. To validate the questionnaire, questions were pretested amongst 8 respondents. The questionnaire, which can be found in appendix A, was divided into three parts.

1. Verification. This part is to verify that the respondent meets the selection criteria and to gather demographics and other general information of the respondents. Selection criteria for the target group was: 2-250 employees, service or manufacturing industry, respondent has responsibility on innovation practices, and SME engages in open innovation activities. From the control group the same criteria were expected, except these enterprises needed to employ more than 250 employees.

2. Open innovation practices and related barriers. It is assumed that not all enterprises of the sample are active in executing both informal and formal open innovation practices. To ask the most relevant questions at respondents the questionnaire was split in three segments: questions relevant for those who are not active in open innovation (Non-OI group), those active only in informal activities of open innovation (informal group), and those active in both formal and informal activities of open innovation (inf-/formal group). Furthermore, all respondents received questions concerned with the perceived value of the different open innovation activities and the perceived barriers to open innovation. Table 1 and 2 give an overview of, respectively, the open innovation practices and barriers examined in the this study. In order to avoid overlap between 0,0%

10,0% 20,0% 30,0% 40,0%

(20)

20 practices and barriers as much as possible, and to keep validity high, the barriers examined in this study are similar to those studied by Van de Vrande (et al., 2009). 3. Conclusion. This part includes last questions on demographics of the respondents. Lastly,

the respondents were asked whether they were interested in a follow-up study. In this question they agreed that they could be contacted for an in-depth interview.

Barrier Examples

Administration Bureaucracy, administrative burdens, conflicting rules Finance Obtaining financial resources

Knowledge Lack of technological knowledge, competent personnel, or legal/administrative knowledge

Marketing Insufficient market intelligence, market affinity, marketing problems of products

Organization/ Culture

Balancing innovation and daily tasks, communication problems, aligning partners, organization of innovation

Resources Costs of innovation, time needed

Intellectual property Ownership of developed innovations, user rights when different parties cooperate

Quality of partners Partner does not meet expectations, deadlines are not met Adoption Adoption problems, customer requirements misjudged

Demand Customer demand too specific, innovation appears not to fit the market Competences Employees lack knowledge/competences, not

enough labour flexibility

Commitment Lack of employee commitment, resistance to change Idea Management Employees have too many ideas, no management support Table 2: Investigated barriers to Open Innovation

(21)

21

1.3 Results

In this section an overview will be given of the most important findings of study one. These results are divided in general findings, most important open innovation practices and the perceived barriers of open innovation. In the last paragraph are the hypotheses reviewed.

1.3.1 General findings

A first objective of this study is to check whether our focused group substantially differs from the control group, in this case the SMEs against larger enterprises. This was checked based on three comparisons: 1) The amount of hierarchy within the enterprise, 2) decision right allocation with regard to innovation activities, and 3) the valuation of perceived barrier ‘lack of resources’.

Results show that when the respondents were asked to score their hierarchical structure, the respondents rated their structure 1,68 on a scale of 1-5 (1 stating flat organization structure, 5 hierarchical). This means that, on average, most respondents indicate that the structure of their organization is close to flat. A correlation between size and hierarchy clearly emerges from the dataset when an organization increases in size (1,26 for micro enterprises to 3,06 for large enterprises, see figure 4).

Figure 4: Hierarchical distribution

Figures 5 and 6 represent the responsibility for innovation decisions. 63% of all the SMEs appointed that general management decides about innovation projects. When solely is looked at the companies that have chosen general management as the decision maker of innovation projects (figure 5) it can be seen that general management is less often entitled as the decision maker at medium and large enterprises. The decision-making with regard to innovation projects

0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5

(22)

22 shifts more to the separate innovation departments when an organization increases in size (from 6,3% in micro enterprises up to 35% in large enterprises).

Figure 5: Decision right ‘General Management’ for innovation projects (n=77)

Figure 6: Decision right Innovation/R&D dept. for innovation project (n=20)

The last comparison between SMEs and Large enterprises is based on the difference in the perceived barrier ‘lack of resources’ (eg. Costs and time). Past studies have found that large companies perceive this as a smaller barrier than SMEs. Results of this study also indicate that SMEs perceive ‘lack of resources’ as a more important barrier than large enterprises (figure 7).

0 0,05 0,1 0,15 0,2 0,25 0,3 0,35 0,4 0,45

Micro Small Medium Large

0 0,05 0,1 0,15 0,2 0,25 0,3 0,35 0,4

(23)

23 Figure 7: perceived barrier ‘Lack of resources’ (n=104)

From these three comparisons between SMEs and large enterprises it can be shown that that SMEs in the dataset indeed differ from larger enterprises in organizational terms. These results confirm the view of SMEs as a distinct type of organization.

Importance of open innovation: Manufacturing vs. service industry

In general manufacturing and service SMEs are different in nature. As a result it is plausible that they encounter different barriers when engaging in open innovation. To check if differences in barriers existed between the manufacturing and the service industry, independent T-tests were done for each barrier. The results show however that there was no significant difference between manufacturing and service SMEs when asked about the importance of innovation with respect to the firm. On the contrary, when asked about the importance of open innovation to the firm, SMEs in the service industry rated open innovation as significantly more important than manufacturing SMEs did (respectively 4.6 and 3.7; t (105) = -5.45, p<.01). The same holds when asked for the importance of open innovation for their sector (t (104) = -3.788, p <.01).

1.3.2 Most important open innovation practices and perceived barriers

Manufacturing vs. service industry

On average, respondents in manufacturing industries (M = 3.14, SE = .26) experienced “dividing tasks and responsibilities on innovations” as a greater barrier than those in service industries (M = 2.26, SE = .26). The effect proved to be significant (t(53) = 2.43, p<.01). This effect was not expected and can therefore be interpreted as an explorative finding.

0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5

(24)

24 Second, respondents in manufacturing industry (M = 3.46, SE = .26) experienced “Difficulties concerning the intellectual property of innovations” as a greater barrier than those in service (M = 2.11, SE = .29). The effect proved to be significant (t(53) = 3.43, p<.01). This could be explained by the notion that manufacturing organizations deal with more intellectual property related activities than service organizations. However, a significant difference of the presence in IP related activities between services and manufacturing organizations was not found.

Lastly, respondents in manufacturing industry (M = 3.39, SE = .30) experienced “Partners do not meet expectations” as a greater barrier than those in service (M = 2.67, SE = .29). The effect proved to be significant (t(53) = 1.76, p<.05). Similar to the first finding, this result was an unexpected explorative finding.

Barriers according to Non-OI group

Eight per cent of the respondents were currently not using open innovation practices. One of the respondents for example mentioned they “have their own resources and wanted to keep it this way”. Within this group the respondents rated the barriers acquiring financial resources, lack of resources and administration as the most important barriers of not executing open innovation activities (figure 8).

Figure 8: Barriers perceived by Non-OI group (n=6) SMEs practicing open innovation

The other 94% of the respondents indicated that they made regular use of open innovation practices. The majority of the respondents answered that they were utilizing open innovation

0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5

(25)

25 practices for three important motives: 1) added value for the customer, 2) risk spreading and 3) create and develop future markets/ideas. Furthermore, many respondents argued by collaborating with others they could focus better on their own activities. One respondent answered: “future big innovations will only be developed in and around ecosystems. One party does not possess the knowledge, skills and impact to realize real innovations themselves”. This particular answer was a good illustration of the general vision from respondents on open innovation. Lastly, open innovation will, according to the respondents, lead to a faster and more effective innovation process.

As shown in table 3 SMEs were more engaged in the informal practices than in formal practices. Employee involvement and external networking are the most frequently used informal practices for both groups. Customer involvement is least performed and is also valued lower than the other informal practices. This is especially the case for the group executing solely informal practices. As for the formal practices, the acquirement of external intellectual property is mostly performed by SMEs. In contradiction, it is also rated the lowest value. Venturing is experienced as most valuable.

Open Innovation Practices percentage and score Inf-/Formal group (n=58)

Percentage and score Informal group (n=30) Formal Venturing 66% - 4,34 - IP licensing out 62% - 3,97 - IP licensing in 79% - 3,83 - External participation 67% - 4,21 - Outsourcing R&D 67% - 4,15 - Informal External networking 93% - 4.57 97% - 4,34 Employee involvement 88% - 4,51 80% - 4,63 Customer involvement 76% - 4,11 77% - 3,70 Table 3: Open Innovation practices

Barriers according to Informal Group

This group solely executes informal open innovation activities. The most important barriers for this group were the barriers: acquiring financial resources, lack of resources, balancing innovation and daily tasks, and aligning goals with partners (also shown in figure 9). When asking respondents about the thresholds for not using formal open innovation practices, the most frequent response was that open innovation was not seen to be relevant for their business (40%). Second were the costs of implementing these practices (34%).

(26)

26 Figure 9: Barriers perceived by Informal group (n=30)

Barriers according to Inf-/Formal Group

This group is engaged in at least one formal and one informal open innovation activity. By engaging in both formal and informal open innovation activities, they have a more significant experience with different open innovation practices. The results of this group give a more extensive overview of the barriers, advantages and other statistics that Dutch SMEs engaging in open innovation encounter. The respondents engaging in both formal and informal open innovation practices were the majority (60%) of respondents.

Looking at the barriers, resource issues were among the largest barriers, in line with the expectations. This group rated the lack of resources and acquiring of financial resources as the biggest barriers when using open innovation practices (3.62 and 3.57 respectively, also shown in figure 10). Similar as with the respondents in the no open innovation and only informal open innovation groups, the lowest score of 1 represented no experienced barrier at all and the maximum score of 5 represents a large barrier.

Also causing great difficulties for open innovation was balancing innovation and daily tasks. For this barrier the factor of time is seen as an important issue. One respondent argued, “The daily tasks have to be done, we have to generate income in order to maintain a viable business. The use of open innovation activities on the other hand is not always that clear.” Other organizations however, see innovation as part of their daily business.

Another high rated barrier was partners do not meet expectations (or quality of partners) with a score of 3.38. As expected, collaboration with partners often leads to serious issues with

0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4

(27)

27 these partners. Expectations between partners are not always met, and when this is the case it can harm the collaboration. Also related to the collaboration part of open innovation, with a score of 3.2 of alignment of partners is the 5th_{largest barrier. When asked for drivers of the}

issues with partners, respondents also frequently mentioned a lack of mutual trust, divergent responsibilities of both partners and inadequate communication.

The barrier of issues concerning intellectual property was also among the largest barriers, rated as the 6th_{largest. As expected, IP issues hampered SMEs in their open innovation}

activities.

Last, in accordance with the expectations, employee commitment and resistance was found to be the smallest barrier. Managers indicated that their employees do not show a lot of resistance against open innovation. It should be noted however that with an average score of 2, the barriers is rather small but still a significant one.

Figure 10: : Barriers perceived by Inf-/Formal group (n=58)

1.3.3 Hypotheses review

All hypotheses and findings can be found in Table 4. The results show that approximately 60% of respondents engages in formal open innovation whilst 92% engages in the more informal practices. Hypothesis H1 stating that SMEs engage more in informal than in formal open innovation practices is therefore accepted.

Concerning the importance of open innovation practices, both the service and the manufacturing industry SME managers rated open innovation important. Respondents active in

0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4

(28)

28 the service industry rated open innovation significantly more important than those in the manufacturing industry. Thus, hypothesis H2 stating that open innovation is important for both the manufacturing and service industry is accepted.

Based on the results of the three groups it can be confirmed that the lack of resources and alignment with partners are indeed prime barriers for practicing open innovation. Therefore, Hypotheses H3a and H3c can be accepted. Issues with intellectual property did get mentioned as a significant barrier, but was not among the four highest barriers. The group rated the IP barrier as the sixth. Given these results Hypothesis H3b will be partially accepted. Hypothesis H3d can be accepted since the resistance of employees is rated as the lowest barrier.

Hypothesis

H1 SMEs engage more in informal than formal practices of open innovation.

Accepted

H2 Open innovation practices are relevant for SMEs in both the

service and the manufacturing industry.

Accepted

H3a A lack of resources is one of the prime barriers for SMEs to practice open innovation

Accepted

H3b Legal protection of intellectual property is one of the prime barriers for SMEs to practice open innovation, especially for those engaging in IP licensing.

Partially accepted

H3c Difficulties in collaborating with partners is one of the prime barriers for SMEs to practice open innovation.

Accepted

H3d Employee resistance is not one of the prime barriers for SMEs to practice open innovation.

Accepted

(29)

29

1.4 Discussion study one

Few studies have shown that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) make use open innovation practices. In these studies they suggests however that there exists a wide variety of barriers that hold SMEs against executing open innovation practices. This study confirms these findings and found that SMEs face difficulties in accessing valuable resources (financial and time), difficulties in collaborating with partners and balancing daily tasks with tasks that involve new product development. Because of this, SMEs preferably execute informal open innovation activities because they involve less risk and financial investments. An extensive overview about the relevance of open innovation, primary practices and main barriers will be discussed next.

Relevance of Open Innovation for SMEs

It is argued that open innovation is a form of innovation which can be useful for both large, and smaller enterprises. SMEs frequently use open innovation practices to: 1) create higher added value for the customers, 2) spread more risks, and 3) develop new markets/ideas. These experienced advantages are in line with the predefined advantages of open innovation suggested by Chesbrough (2003). Most important reason for SMEs to become active in open innovation is that SMEs are interested in combining their knowledge and experiences with others. Due to their limited size and resources like knowledge, SMEs are forced to draw heavily on their networks (Vossen, 1998). That is why open innovation is very much applicable to SMEs. As for the hierarchical structure, most SMEs stated that their organizational structure is flat with short communication lines. This can be seen as an important advantage for SMEs in executing open innovation since this will allow them to have less bureaucracy, thus more flexibility for innovative projects (Nooteboom, 1994; Rothwell, 1989).

Open innovation is usually more associated with medium- and high-tech manufacturing industries than with service related industries, since innovation in manufacturing industries is seen as more tangible. This research shows however that the concept of open innovation is equally present and important for service related SMEs as it is for SME in manufacturing industries. This is in line with the studies of Lichtenthaler (2008) and Van de Vrande (et al., 2009). In fact, service enterprises perceived open innovation as slightly more relevant for their enterprise as enterprises in the manufacturing industry. Participation of others to share their ideas, experiences and knowledge is getting more convenient in service industries which stimulated the service industries to use more external sources like crowdsourcing platforms (Sandulli, Fernandez-Menendez, Rodriguez-Duarte & Lopez-Sanchez, 2012).

(30)

30 Practiced forms of open innovation

In line with earlier research shows this study that SMEs engage mostly in practices with a more informal character. SMEs are especially active in the informal practices like: External networking, Employee Involvement and Customer Involvement. This is in line with findings of Van de Vrande (et al., 2009) wherein it was argued that this has to do with the fact that these practices do not require the necessary upfront investments. Customer involvement was the least performed informal practice. Moreover, SMEs scored customer involvement lower than other informal practices. This can be seen as a remarkable finding since it is argued by innovation theorists that customers are a useful source or aid when it comes to creating new product ideas or adjustments of existing ideas (Grassmann, 2006; Von Hippel, 2005). This could mean that SMEs are not using their customer to their fullest potential.

Experienced barriers

The acquisition and availability of resources was found to be the largest barrier of study one. This is in line with earlier studies finding that a lack of resources is a serious difficulty for SMEs engaging in open innovation (Madrid-Guijarro et al., 2009; Thorgren and Wincent, 2011; Gulati and Nickerson, 2008). The resource barrier can be found back in many aspects of open innovation in SMEs. Most important is that SMEs usually lack the ability or resources to set up a separate R&D department to run all the innovative projects. This is due to the fact that most resources owned by SMEs need to be deployed in daily activities to generate enough revenue. Given the uncertainty of the future value of open innovation activities, the choice of reserving resources for innovation is hard to decide. Next to the actual new product or service development arise other issues which involve the necessary resources. Monitoring partners, putting up extra contracts and other formal agreements are examples of this. Larger organizations are more often used to such practices where SMEs for example do not have separate departments specialized in contracts.

Also found, the alignment between partners and partners not living up to an organizations’ expectations are other issues that could hamper the innovation activities of SMEs. Due to inadequate communication and alignment between SMEs and their partners could lead to ineffective, unstructured processes and insufficient product quality and conflicts. This is also stated by other studies. When starting a collaboration, different goals can cause difficulties when partners are not willing to adapt to each other’s goals. Also, when goals seem clear at first, but later on in the innovation process appear contradicting or unclear, this could harm the open innovation process (Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke and West, 2008).

Intellectual property is according to this study also hampering open innovation for SMEs. Similar to what was found by Chesbrough (2010) and Tödtling (et al., 2011) is that SMEs are

(31)

31 usually inexperienced to deal with legal aspects of innovation. The aspect of limited financial resources also forms a barrier for SMEs to manage IP rights in the right way. However, more SMEs in this study are arguing that IP is becoming less important. Most SMEs agree that they cannot create innovations without the knowledge and work of others. Making own technologies available for others is needed, and IP legislation will only decrease the value of potential innovations. For this a level of trust is needed between SME and their collaborating partners.

The smallest barrier, although still a barrier, is employee resistance. The fact that resistance to innovation was the lowest barrier according to managers might be a sign that employees acknowledge that innovation is necessary for the enterprise to survive/develop and therefore accept the risks that come along with innovation.

An interesting finding of this study, which has not been investigated much by other studies, is that the barrier finding the right balance between daily- and innovation activities is seen as an important barrier. The issue of time to execute open innovation activities is closely related to this barrier. Van de Vrande and colleagues (2009) did study this barrier and also concluded that this was an important barrier. SMEs find it difficult to divide their time and resources on daily activities, and innovation related activities because it is always uncertain whether these innovations are going to be successful.

Motives for second study

Summarizing study one, it made clear that Dutch (High-Tech) SMEs make extensive use of both informal and formal open innovation practices. Still, more interest is given to the informal open innovation practices. This is due to the lack of resources, availability- and/or quality of partners, and the lack of time to execute these practices. When is looked solely at the informal practices, the study revealed that customer involvement was the least performed and valued practice in the sample. This is a remarkable finding since the customer is eventually the end-user of the developed product. Furthermore, it is also argued by researchers that customers can be a valuable source for enterprises for the development of new products (Grassmann, 2006; Von Hippel, 2005). It would therefore be interesting to investigate why SMEs are involving and valuing the customer less than other open innovation practices. Given the barriers that SMEs face in the availability of resources and balancing daily- and innovation activities, it would be interesting to investigate the importance of time on customer involvement. Motives for further research in this case would be to investigate how SMEs are involving their customers, and whether the factor of time is influencing (the value of) customer involvement. Next section will elaborate more about this.

(32)

32

Study two

Customer Involvement and Innovation Speed

This study will investigate the influence of customer involvement on the speed of innovation. The reason for conducting this study is because SMEs showed a moderate interest in-, and appreciation of customer involvement in the first study. A possible explanation for this, which is going to be investigated in this second study, is that customers are delaying the innovation process. This is not favorable, since it is shown in the first study that SMEs lack the time to invest in open innovation practices.

The influence of customer involvement on the speed of innovation is going to be investigated by looking at how high-tech SMEs of the first study are involving their customers to the different stages of the innovation process, also referred to as the New Product Development process (NPD). The reason for focusing on customer involvement in the NPD of high-tech SMEs is twofold. First, high-tech SMEs are highly skilled in developing new technology, but usually lack the resources to commercialize these technologies (Berry, 1998). Learning more about the involvement of customers at these enterprises will lead to the possibility of developing more effective customer involvement strategies. Second, focusing on customer involvement of new product development of high-tech SMEs is also easy to compare because they all use the same development stages. This strengthens the final result of this study.

The structure of this study is as follows. In the first part existing literature on customer involvement, NPD and innovation speed will be discussed. This will serve as the basis of the theoretical framework of this study. In the methodology section an overview will be given about the sample, procedure and analysis of the study. This is followed by a results section which will discuss the most important findings of the study. The findings will then be analyzed and compared to existing literature in the discussion section. lastly, limitations and suggestions for future research will be discussed.

2.1 Current literature

In this chapter literature is going to be reviewed around customer involvement, NPD and innovation speed. The first three paragraphs will discuss customer involvement, the different stages of NPD, and the influence of customer involvement on the NPD process. Last three paragraphs discuss the importance of innovation speed, the need of speed for SMEs, and the influence of customers on innovation speed. This literature forms the basis for the theoretical framework in study two which is discussed hereafter.

(33)

33

2.1.1 Customer Involvement

Definition of ‘the customer’

A customer is described as an entity which receives a service or product from a seller in return for a compensation (Kendall, 2007). Customers are generally divided into two types. The first type is the intermediate or trade customer who is a dealer that purchases goods for resale. This can be done as a retailer or after additions or modifications are made to the purchased goods. The second type is the ultimate customer whose intention is not to resell the goods but to consume the good (Blythe, 2008). For an enterprises there are ‘business to business’ (or B2B) customers and ‘business to consumer’ (or B2C)customers. Both customers can be a valuable resource to an enterprises.

A need for customer influence

Literature has been dominated by the manufacturing active paradigm (MAP) wherein the manufacturer decided everything for the customer. At the end of the 70s this paradigm shifted more towards an customer active paradigm (CAP) where innovations were also fueled by customers (Von Hippel, 1978). During this shift researchers like Rosenberg (1976) explored the role of customers in the innovation process and found that the most basic machine types like lathes and milling machines were first build by user firms having a strong need for them. Due to the increasing heterogeneity in customers’ needs, and the only availability of mass manufactured solutions, customers (or end-users) started to develop their own machines (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2000; Von Hippel, 2005), which has major consequences on the production methods of manufacturers.

Major business discontinuities like globalization, deregulation, technological convergence; and the rapid evolution of computer software/hardware, easy-to-use tools and components for innovation, changed the roles and relationships of businesses and their customers (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2000; Von Hippel, 2005). As an example, thematic consumer groups are revolutionizing emerging markets and transforming established ones. This encourages customers to speak out more and give more feedback with the help of online tools, like forums as platforms. An effect of the internet is that customers can experiment with the existing products of enterprises. The result of this changing role of the customer is that enterprises can no longer act autonomously.

(34)

34 Customer role

Customers can fulfill different roles during the development of a product. These are the ‘resource’-, ‘co-producer’-, and beneficiary (or user) role (Gersuny and Rosengren 1973; Joshi & Sharma, 2004). The roles of resource and co-developer are related to the input side of organization activity or product development, while the role of user, buyer can only be classified at the output side of product development (Lengnick-Hall, 1996).

The ‘customer as a resource’ role involves activities like sharing information with the enterprise about critical end-product requirements. This can increase the acceptance rate, innovativeness and time-to-market of the new product. Within this role a distinction can be made in the influence a customer has on the NPD process. Low involvement can be appointed as the ‘design for’ approach wherein products are designed on behalf of the customer. For this approach customer data, general studies and models are used as a knowledge base for design. The influence of customers can therefore be seen in an indirect manner. Medium customer involvement can be appointed as the ‘design with’ approach wherein the same information of the first approach is used, but as an addition to that are different solutions/concepts proposed to customers from which they can react on (Kaulio, 1998). The ‘customer as a resource’ role is seen very important due to information asymmetries: manufacturers and customers tend to know different things. Product developers need to forms of information in order to successfully develop a product. These two types of information are the need-, and context-of-use information (information generated by the customer), and the generic solution information (generated by manufactures specialized in a specific solution). Bringing this ‘sticky’ information together can be very costly and time-consuming (Von Hippel, 1994). An important consequence of information asymmetry is that users tend to develop innovations that are functionally novel, while manufacturers tend to develop innovations as improvements on well-known needs (Von Hippel, 2005). Bringing these tendencies together and form one innovation goal can be difficult, especially when more end-users come into play.

The ‘co-producer’ role of customers refers to the actual involvement of customers in a significant portion of the development tasks. This concerns the highest involvement of the customer which Kaulio (1998) defines as the ‘design by’ approach wherein customers are actively involved in the design and production of their own product.

Turning customers into innovators

Thomke and Von Hippel (2002) propose a customer role in NPD wherein the entire trial and error iteration of the product development is carried out without the manufacturer. The only role of the manufacturer is to provide a set of tools (a tool kit) so that the customer can design and develop application-specific parts of the product on their own. The result is a great increase

Open innovation in Dutch (High-Tech) small and medium enterprises : the main executed practices, perceived barriers, and the influence of customer involvement on innovation speed.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Study one

Main executed open innovation practices and hampering barriers.

1.1 Current literature

1.1.1. The importance of Open Innovation

1.1.2. Open innovation practices

1.1.3. Barriers to open innovation

1.1.4. Framework study one

1.2 Methodology

1.2.1 Data collection

1.2.2 Procedure

1.3 Results

1.3.1 General findings

1.3.2 Most important open innovation practices and perceived barriers

1.3.3 Hypotheses review

1.4 Discussion study one

Study two

Customer Involvement and Innovation Speed

2.1 Current literature

2.1.1 Customer Involvement