Open Innovation practices for product-service design

In the shift toward Servitization, the adoption of a Product Service System is a key element in ensuring competitiveness of firms. Nevertheless, an increasing attention must be put on Product Service Systems design, especially on the design of product and service components, together with the effective design of their interaction as a system. The aim of this study is deepening the interrelationships between the adoption of Open Innovation practices and product-service design. The research involves a stratified sample of 9 companies adopting different categories and degrees of Product Service Systems. The research protocol was built in order to investigate the adoption of Open Innovation practices distinguished in inbound, outbound and coupled practices, with the aim of understanding if there are particular (set of) practices adopted within contexts characterized by different degrees of product-service design relevance. Analysis of results allowed to formulate three different theoretical propositions, linking the relevance and characteristics of Open Innovation practices to certain context of Product Service System adoption