Future Development Strategies : Challenges to adopt Open Innovation Practices

Living in the era of globalization and the Internet, the demand for faster innovation cycles is increasing. Thus companies have the aim to explore new innovation strategies. Therefore the basis of this study is to investigate the development from the traditional way of innovation to Open Innovation practices. If companies want to get a benefit of Open Innovation, many structural and cultural changes have to be overcome. The protection of company secrecies and the retention of the core competencies are the most elementary factors, which have to be considered if external stakeholders are involved in the innovation process. In addition to that, the purpose of this is to examine and declare the limitations and challenges of Open Innovation strategies. Through a multiple case study of three companies, including semi-structured interviews with key individuals, who have extensive experiences in the research and development department, the empirical findings are deducted and connected with the framework. Furthermore the gathered data is analysed on the basis of a research model, which was developed from the existing literature. The research model contains the most common challenges when adopting Open Innovation. These challenges are intellectual property, flexibility, internal structure, trust, acceptance and integration. In the course of this study, different significant manifestations of the respective factors were determined. Moreover it can be identified that some factors are related to each other or have several similarities. This study shows that the structure and the size of a company is the most crucial challenge by adopting Open Innovation practices in the ongoing innovation process. The challenge of company size is affecting the corporate and process structures. This includes the organization of intellectual property as well as the cooperation with companies of different sizes. The second important challenge is the generic term of trust, which is related to the overall acceptance of the company towards Open Innovation. Moreover, the factor of trust is influencing the level of integration of suppliers and customers in the innovation process. To find the right balance between trusting and supporting the internal innovation department and be open for external knowledge is the key factor for success. Additionally, it can be recommended to implement a central innovation department, which is only responsible for Open Innovation