Contribution to theoretical discussion

The topic of the interconnection of a company’s open innovation strategy with a national innovation system, its institutions, and national cultures, has rarely, if ever, been studied.

Hence, the issues raised by this thesis may establish an interesting academic discussion on the topic.

The research question - how does the environment affect the adoption of open innovation by companies, raised in the first chapter of this research, was answered through three sub-questions as the research proceeded, with particular publications devoted to answer each question. In the discussion on results, it is logical not to divide the listing of important external factors from the impact they make, hence Table 6 presents the summary of the factors proposed in one of the publications, classification into structural, institutional, and cultural influences and direct implications. The discussion of major factors and their impact is

also presented below, as responses to the question of - what are the factors influencing open innovation adoption and how do external factors influence tendency to open innovation in the companies in different environments?

The existing business environment does impose certain problems. The findings indicate that economic systems and institutions (in particular the protection of IPRs) would have substantial effects on the behaviour of firms with respect to their engagement in open innovation practices. Thus, complexity of intellectual property rights (and fear of infringement) decreases the willingness of firms to engage in OI, especially on the outbound side.

Table 6. Classified environmental factors and their impact to open innovation.

FACTOR COMPONENTS IMPACT IMPLICATION

STRUCTURAL Information asymmetry intermediary bodies hinders the open innovation processes.

Asset specificity drives smaller companies to participate in open innovation more actively.

Openness as a result of lack of specific assets Openness is impossible in

Coordinating role of institutions

Public funding

Regulatory norms are industry dependent.

Unclear IPR appropriability discourages OI.

Complexity and cost of protecting of IP discourages OI

Governmental policies drive innovation in emerging economies.

The additionality effect of public funding is stronger than the negative effect of appropriability of R&D related to it.

Protective attitudes towards knowledge are confirmed to be a serious barrier to open innovation (NSH) as well as the resistance to “outsiders”

knowledge also takes place

The cultural attitudes can be leveraged through managerial structures and incentives inside the company.

An interesting finding is that the governmental support of R&D is a stronger motivator for OI than the negative effect of unclear appropriability of state funded research. Hence, even despite it not always being clear, who owns the rights to research surplus created inside the

project with state ownership of an overall IP, the benefit to the developing company and its open innovation activity is rather high as perceived by the companies themselves.

The main barriers indentified for firms active in open innovation are similar to the firms who implement open innovation from time to time. Hence, it is possible to assume, that the external influences are stronger in creating barriers to open innovation than internal practices, which companies may develop and improve over time.

Such challenges as the difficulty of finding buyers for technologies, on the one hand, and a lack of desired technologies on offer on the other, reflect the underdeveloped state of markets for technology.

With regard to the cultural aspect, Not Invented here and also Not Sold Here syndromes are substantial challenges (i.e., firms have protective attitudes towards the external exploitation of knowledge). The influence of national culture as a determinant of these specific attitudes was previously analysed in knowledge sharing literature. As a possible implication of this, the dimension of culture can be taken into account when formalising the open innovation processes in organisations, which is discussed further in the following subchapter.

Regarding the question how environmental factors influence open innovation performance in companies, the results of the simulation runs need to be discussed. When the performance of a company is approximated to a number of commercialised innovations (new products) developed in open innovation mode, the same factors as previously mentioned tend to have an impact (IPR, market of technology, market dynamics and national culture). What is of considerable interest in the thesis results, is the tipping point of open innovation, when under certain environmental conditions, considered to be favourable, performance drastically decreases reacting to the saturation of the environment and revealing the existence of the point, where the system starts to seek a balance. This situation happens as saturation, when the abundance of positive influences turns to negative. It explains why often in research the same factor in different environments has both positive and negative impacts. Thereby, the important implication of this result is search for a balance point to optimise the outcomes within system of innovation. This opens a vast avenue for further research, in line with the question on the balance of openness vs closeness for innovation.

Hence, as demonstrated by the system, optimal market dynamics exist, and in an overly active market have a negative effect; however, the effect of this dynamics can only come in action when the market for technology is developed enough.

Regarding the cultural aspect of open innovation, the results achieved in this thesis bring the cultural dimension into the discussion as to the reasons why some countries are better at open innovation than others. As previously stated, knowledge sharing underlies the philosophy of open innovation and at the same time, knowledge sharing hostility is a known concept in cross-cultural research. Only one aspect of cultural dimensions was introduced to the simulation model – collectivism vs. individualism - and yet it gives interesting insights into the matter, previously not explicitly discussed in open innovation literature: when an appropriability regime or technological market development tends to zero, countries with

higher individualistic scores start to lose their edge compared to countries with higher collectivistic scores.

Hence, the research presented in this thesis has distinguished the major factors (perceived barriers) having an impact on open innovation practices, classified them into three categories, defined their impact through causal relationships, analysed the factors, and controlled for the multifactor systemic influence on the open innovation performance of the company. As well as the existence of tipping point for open innovation being discovered, a new tool (system dynamics simulation) for analysing open innovation behaviour of companies has been brought from the cross-disciplinary approach.

The research also directed attention to the cultural aspect of open innovation, which does not precisely support the claim by Hofstede and Bond (1984) and Shane (1992) that societies, which score high on individualism and low on the power dimension, have higher economic growth and a greater tendency to innovate - as present research demonstrates, under some conditions of the environment, the individualistic cultures are outperformed by the collectivistic ones.