Is it a good idea to share ideas? : A qualitative study about how Open Innovation is used between Chinese and Swedish entrepreneurs in an international market

Abstract: In order for corporations to develop their business, they could apply an approach of exchanging ideas and knowledge with other corporations could contribute to new significant innovations. The international approach is called Open Innovation and could be implemented both externally and internally within firms. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how Open Innovation is used by Swedish and Chinese entrepreneurs in an international market context. By implementing a qualitative research method, the researchers obtained a deeper understanding of how networks and trust affect Open Innovation when the approach is used. This thesis derived from an inductive approach since the authors made observations and generated theories from those observations, which created a theoretical synthesis. The theoretical synthesis conducted into the operationalization and the interview guide for the data gathering of the semi- structured interviews. The gathered empirical data was compared with the theories in order to analyze the similarities and differences between them. Lastly, the study was concluded by answering the research questions, theoretical, practical, and policy implications, limitations for the study, and suggestion for future research.