Walking the tightrope of Open Innovation- A study of barriers and the individual’s behaviour in the transition phase

Abstract: The open innovation process is complex and requires adoption throughout to be successful and much has been accounted for in the initial stages, the front-end. However, research calls for a better understanding of the back-end, meaning the downstream activities of the organisation. The part of the process connecting the front-end to the back-end is understood as the transition phase and is considered important to the process. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the individual’s behaviour in the transition phase. In more detail, an understanding of what barriers the individual employee, who performs open innovation practices, is facing in the transition phase, and what behaviour the individual chooses to cope with these. The multiple case study followed an inductive, qualitative research methodology involving four external open innovation projects including nine individuals from different multinational organisations within various industries. Case-specific barriers and individual coping behaviours are identified, grouped into dimensions and compared across cases. In a final step the dimensions and individual coping behaviours are synthesised and the topic of power and politics emerged. By connecting the front-end to the back-end, the findings reveal 16 shared barriers in the transition phase, which can be categorised into the barrier dimensions Organisation, People, Senior management support, Funding and Immaturity. The individuals transferring the outcome of an external open innovation project cope with these either by accepting and working with the given conditions, showing educational and pedagogical behaviours or by networking. The interrelation of barriers and the corresponding individual coping behaviours in the transition phase seem to be better explained by the interdependency of political acts and degrees of power within an organisation.