The impact of open-border organization culture and employees' knowledge, attitudes, and rewards with regards to open innovation: an empirical study

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to fill a significant research gap in academic literature pertaining to Open Innovation. In order to do so, this paper empirically tests the impact of organizational culture, employees' knowledge, attitudes, and rewards as antecedents and mediators of Open Innovation adoption in organizations, facilitating a more thorough understanding by utilizing an empirical multi-level approach. Design/methodology/approach: This paper analyses the results of the "Identification of Industrial Needs for Open Innovation Education in Europe" survey through a quantitative analysis using logistic regression models. This survey includes 528 employees working in 28 different industrial sectors in 37 countries, most of which are in Europe. Findings: The results suggest a positive impact of organizational characteristics on the adoption of Open Innovation (i.e. including the adoption of outside-in and inside-out open innovation activities in participating organizations), showing that the openness of an organization's culture increases its likelihood of adopting an Open Innovation paradigm. More importantly, the results highlight the positive mediating effect of employees' knowledge and rewards on this relationship. Practical implications: The proposed multi-level approach offers new insight into organizational knowledge. It enables the improvement of Open Innovation and Knowledge Management practices in organizations by assisting practitioners and academics in recognizing the relationship between organizational culture; employees' knowledge, attitudes, and rewards; and the adoption of the Open Innovation paradigm. Social implications: This paper offers a possible explanation on why open-border cultures are more likely to have a successful open innovation adoption, by relating it to factors that advance in the presence of an open-border culture, such as active participation of OI relative departments in knowledge sourcing and knowledge exchange, and rewarding employees for open innovation activities. Originality/value: This paper presents a new framework which links organizational culture to Open Innovation, moving on from merely examining culture in terms of its positive or negative impact on Open Innovation adoption. It contributes to research on the Open Innovation paradigm and Knowledge Management by highlighting the significance of antecedents and mediators from a multi-level perspective using multiple units of analysis. Most previous studies focus on a single unit of analysis