Inside-Out: The Forgotten Side of ICT-Enabled Open Innovation

The exploitation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in external knowledge transfer is a nontrivial management issue, especially in the Open Innovation (OI) process. The role of digital technologies and platforms in enabling connectivity and collaboration between actors is neglected when dealing with the outbound OI process and felt as breeding ground for further research by the OI scientific community. Accordingly, this research aims at exploring the potential of ICT in backing the outbound OI process up by building a conceptual framework that matches the outbound OI phases with acknowledged categories of ICT tools. The framework is designed to guide a deep understanding of how digital technologies could support specific phases of the outbound OI process. In so doing, it could be useful for both researchers investigating the relationship between outbound OI and ICT and for software developers interested in a preliminary design of an ICT platform for outbound OI