Fast-connecting open innovation practices: On the role of intermediaries to accelerate the absorptive capacity function

International audienceFirms that engage in open innovation (OI) activities seek to leverage on external knowledge to innovate and use the open innovation intermediaries to conduct and structure their collaborative efforts. The access to external knowledge often requires an internal knowledge effort to be able to recognize, assimilate and use external knowledge which imply the organization of absorptive capacity (AC) function. Still, the absorption of isolated ideas in OI initiatives is a major issue. The purpose of this research is to investigate how the OI intermediaries ensure the AC for firms participating in the OI through the process of searching and integrating knowledge created through the innovation process. Through an exploratory case study of an intermediary platform that connects the technical experts throughout the world – IdexLab and its clients, we investigate IdexLab’s capacity to prepare and conduct the AC activity based on “novelty search” algorithms. We find that the OI platform can incorporate function to automatize the AC and facilitate further diffusion of ideas