The emergence of openness: How and why firms adopt selective revealing in open innovation

Open innovation is often facilitated by strong intellectual property rights (IPRs), but it may also function, and even be boosted, when firms deliberately waive some of their IPRs. Extant literature has pointed out the potential benefits of such behavior, but falls short of explaining what triggers firms to practice it in the first place and to maintain or extend it. Since the waiving of IPRs runs counter to common views on strategy and competition and to engrained practices, this is a non-trivial question. To address it, we conduct an empirical study in a segment of the computer component industry which traditionally has taken a rather proprietary stance. With the advent of the open source operating system Linux, firms increasingly waived their IPRs on software drivers. We trace and analyze this process using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Our results indicate that component makers went through a learning process, which led some to realize how selectively waiving IPRs may be beneficial for their business. We uncover customer demand pull as the initial trigger and observe how a positive feedback loop sets in subsequently, leading to a further increase in the use of selective revealing. Overall, we find that openness develops into a new dimension of competition. We discuss the implication of our findings for research on open innovation and highlight how they impact managers in practice.     

嵌入式Linux系统的研究与应用

随着嵌入式Linux系统的迅速发展,嵌入式Linux已发展成为嵌入式操作系统的一个重要分支。Linux是一种将源代码完全开放的Unix类操作系统,它的最大特点是价格低廉、安全性好等。本文分析了嵌入式Linux系统技术,介绍了嵌入式Linux的研究与应用。     

Externalities of openness in innovation

Discussion of open innovation has typically stressed the benefits to the individual enterprise from boundary-spanning linkages and improved internal knowledge sharing. In this paper we explore the potential for wider benefits from openness in innovation and argue that openness may itself generate positive externalities by enabling improved knowledge diffusion. The potential for these (positive) externalities suggests a divergence between the private and social returns to openness and the potential for a sub-optimal level of openness where this is determined purely by firms’ private returns. Our analysis is based on Irish plant-level panel data from manufacturing industry over the period 1994–2008. Based on instrumental variables regression models our results suggest that externalities of openness in innovation are significant and that they are positively associated with firms’ innovation performance. We find that these externality effects are unlikely to work through their effect on the spread of open innovation practices. Instead, they appear to positively influence innovation outputs by either increasing knowledge diffusion or strengthening competition. Our evidence on the significance of externalities from openness in innovation provides a rationale for public policy aimed at promoting open innovation practices among firms.     

Product innovation rumors as forms of open innovation

Prior studies of open innovation have highlighted the effects of different flows of knowledge between firms and external partners—such as flows of software code, technical solutions, or new product ideas—and how firms face a “paradox of openness” about how open to be to external sources while also appropriating value. There are increasingly flows of more provisional knowledge as well, in the form of product innovation rumors exchanged within online technology blogs. Our study objective was to understand how product innovation rumors are used by firms as both inflows and outflows of provisional knowledge and their effect on the innovation process. Using interview data within a high-technology firm whose forthcoming products were the subject of rumor within technology blogs, we develop propositions regarding how inflows of product innovation rumors affect innovation decisions (while addressing concerns about appropriability and intrafirm knowledge flows) and how outflows from firms may affect stakeholders outside the firm (through selective revealing and influence of technology blog editors). Product innovation rumors in part address the paradox of openness by forming an informal means of open innovation alongside formal processes, and we suggest further research opportunities in this domain.     

Reconceptualizing the paradox of openness: How solvers navigate sharing-protecting tensions in crowdsourcing

The paradox of openness describes the fundamental tension between knowledge sharing and knowledge protection in open innovation. While sharing is vital for value creation, protecting is critical for value appropriation. Prior research has examined this paradox of openness from the perspective of the seeking firm, focusing on the firm-level challenges of inbound open innovation. In this article, we complement that research by illuminating the tensions between sharing and protecting in individual-level outbound open innovation, where we argue that the paradox of openness is most prevalent, yet much less well understood. Drawing on the experience of individual participants, or solvers, in intermediated crowdsourcing contests, we analyze textual data from 2,149 answers to five open-ended narrative questions embedded in a large-scale solver survey, as well as 43 in-depth interviews of solvers. Our findings indicate that individual solvers face fundamental sharing-protecting tensions that carry considerable economic and psychological costs. We also document how solvers attempt to navigate the paradox of openness by employing three formal and four informal value appropriation practices. They build elaborate configurations of these practices, which they tailor to the idiosyncrasies of each contest. They also dynamically adjust these configurations over time, as the contest and the interaction with the seeker unfold. We end by outlining how these findings contribute to a more multifaceted conceptualization and a richer understanding of the paradox of openness.     

Shaping the national system of inter-industry knowledge exchange : Vertical integration, licensing and repeated knowledge transfer in the German plastics industry

We will claim in this paper that it was in particular the above-average propensity to share innovative information with customers and competitors which caused the exceptional international competitiveness of the West German plastics industry including chemical firms, plastics fabricators and machine makers. The system of knowledge exchange of this national cluster was shaped in two main steps. In the first half of the 20th century, cartellization and mergers were first tolerated and then even supported by the German government. It was in this period when German chemical firms formed the vertically integrated I.G. Farben concern which provided an optimal organisational framework to explore the new technological path of plastics. After the breaking up of I.G. Farben the firms of the West German chemical firms had to find new ways to maintain inter-industry technological co-operation in the second half of the 20th century. It turned out that they became aware of both contractual and non-contractual solutions of bundling standard good and information which were often placed somewhere between “market” and “hierarchy”. It seems to be no accident that all these different institutions did primarily encourage knowledge exchange between firms in geographical and cultural proximity. That is why the knowledge exchanging network of the plastics industry described in this paper has been in particular concentrated on German firms. Even so the question is still open whether this localisation is just a curiosity limited to a special industry cluster or part of a broader German system of knowledge exchange.     

开放度对企业技术创新绩效的影响

 Chesbrough 教授提出的开放式创新为创新管理提供了一种全新的思维模式,开放的本质是外部创新资源的获取和利用,通过内外创新资源的整合和利用,减少技术和市场的不确定性,提高创新绩效。但过度开放会对企业带来负面影响。本文从开放的广度和深度两个方面测度目前中国企业技术创新的开放度,分析不同产业的企业开放度对创新绩效的影响。分析发现,目前我国企业在技术创新活动中开放程度比较低,企业在技术创新活动中向外部组织开放有利于提高创新绩效,对于科技驱动型产业的企业,开放度对创新绩效呈倒U型的二次型曲线相关关系,经验驱动型产业的企业,开放度对创新绩效呈正线性相关关系。     

Industry funding and university professors’ research performance

University research is to an increasing extent funded by industry, and the share of basic funding is decreasing. In the literature, there are optimistic and pessimistic views on the implication of this development. Based on data from a questionnaire study among all tenured university professors in Norway (N = 1967) we find that there is a significant relationship between industry funding and research performance: professors with industrial funding describe their research as applied to a greater extent, they collaborate more with other researchers both in academia and in industry, and they report more scientific publications as well as more frequent entrepreneurial results. There is neither a positive nor negative relationship between academic publishing and entrepreneurial outputs.     

Learning at the boundaries in an “Open Regional Innovation System”: A focus on firms’ innovation strategies in the Emilia Romagna life science industry

The paper investigates the existence of an Open Regional Innovation System (ORIS model). This model is characterised by the firms’ adoption of an open innovation strategy, which overcomes not only the boundaries of the firms but also the boundaries of the region.Using data collected in a sample of life science firms, our research provides the evidence that the Emilia Romagna RIS has evolved towards an ORIS model, where firms’ innovation search strategy, despite being still embedded in local nets (involving several regional public research organisations - PROs), is open to external-to-the-region research networks and knowledge sources. It also shows that innovation openness influences significantly the firms’ innovative performance.     

The “human side” of open innovation: The role of employee diversity in firm-level openness

The use of external knowledge for innovation (i.e., inbound or outside-in open innovation) has received substantial attention in the innovation literature. However, the “human side” of open innovation is still poorly understood. We consider the role of employee characteristics with respect to predicting firm-level openness. Drawing on the human capital, learning and creativity literatures, we theorize that knowledge diversity of the firm’s employees is positively associated with employees’ ability to identify and absorb external knowledge, which aggregates to increased firm-level openness—that is, firms’ use of external knowledge in their pursuit of innovation. Based on a combination of three data sources, namely, two survey data sources and register data, we find support for our hypothesis that employees’ educational diversity is positively associated with firm-level openness. However, we find no direct association between employees’ work history diversity and firm-level openness but rather—as also hypothesized—a conditional relationship based on educational background, which implies that diverse work history only has a positive impact at higher levels of educational diversity. To reduce endogeneity concerns, we undertake a series of robustness checks.     

Climbing the Ladder: Inward Sourcing as an Upgrading Capability in Global Value Chains

How can emerging-economy firms technically upgrade in global value chains (GVCs) and avoid being locked into low value-added activities? Inspired by catch-up cycles theory and “in-out-in” policy of GVC participation (Lee et al., 2017), we propose a novel concept of inward-sourcing capability – the ability to implement a dynamic transition from foreign sourcing to local sourcing in GVCs. We argue that inward-sourcing capability is critical for technical upgrade of emerging-economy firms. Using a full sample of Chinese manufacturing firms (714,117 firm-year observations) from 2000 to 2015, we investigate four antecedents of inward-sourcing capability and find that market-based institutions, openness to foreign multinational enterprises, and R&D intensity strengthen such capability-building, while state ownership impedes it. We also find inward-sourcing capability widens Chinese firms’ search breadth and strengthens innovation capability and technical impact. Our new concept and findings carry important policy implications for the second stage of “in-out-in” GVC participation.     

Factors affecting university-industry R&D projects: The importance of searching, screening and signalling

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the determinants of research cooperation between firms and Public research organisations (PROs) for a sample of innovating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The econometric analysis is based on the results of the KNOW survey carried out in seven EU countries during 2000. In contrast to earlier works that provide information about the importance of PROs’ research, we know the number of firm/PRO collaborative research and development (R&D) projects. This allows us to study the determinants of firm collaboration with PROs in terms of both the propensity of a firm to undertake R&D projects with a university (do they cooperate or not) and the extent of this collaboration (number of R&D projects). Two questions are addressed. Which firms cooperated with PROs? And what are the firm characteristics that might explain the number of R&D projects with PROs? The results of our analysis point to two major phenomena. First, the propensity to forge an agreement with an academic partner depends on the ‘absolute size’ of the industrial partner. Second the openness of firms to the external environment, as measured by their willingness to search, screen and signal, significantly affects the development of R&D projects with PROs. Our findings suggest that acquiring knowledge through the screening of publications and involvement in public policies positively affects the probability of signing an agreement with a PRO, but not the number of R&D projects developed. In fact, firms that outsource research and development, and patent to protect innovation and to signal competencies show higher levels of collaboration.     

探求与企业特质相匹配的开放式创新模式

开放式创新是当前创新发展的趋势,但企业如何有效实施和管理开放式创新仍然缺乏研究。文章基于开放式技术创新强调内外创新资源互补协同的本质,结合不同外部组织所拥有的关键创新资源,提出不同特质的企业应采取的开放模式,并实证验证。研究发现:开放能提升创新绩效,但企业内部能力和不同开放模式之间存在交互效应。内部R&D能力强的企业,与科学合作伙伴合作能提升创新绩效;内部R&D能力较强而制造能力一般的企业,应较多地与横向合作企业合作;内部R&D能力一般的企业,与技术相关组织和价值链上的合作伙伴密切联系,能显著提升创新绩效。文章指出不同特质的企业应选择与内部能力相匹配的开放模式。     

How does openness affect the importance of incentives for innovation?

When firms open up to external resources for innovation, do internal incentives still matter? This paper investigates the moderating effect of open innovation on the relationship between incentives and innovation using a survey database of British firms. Whilst both openness and incentives are positively associated with innovation efficiency, a substitution effect is found between openness and incentives. Whilst long-term incentives appear to enhance efficiency to a greater extent than short-term incentives, the substitution effect of openness is stronger regarding long-term incentives.     

集群企业开放度对创新绩效的影响机制: 基于浙江三个集群的实证研究

在现有文献分析基础上,基于集群特征, 构建了以网络中心性和吸收能力作为调节变量、以知识获取作为中介变量的集群企业开放度对其创新绩效影响机制模型。选取浙江省3个产业集群中116家企业作为研究对象,采用回归分析等多种统计方法进行实证验证。结论表明：第一,知识获取在集群企业开放度对创新绩效的影响中起到中介作用,即集群企业开放度是通过影响知识获取进而影响创新绩效。第二,知识吸收能力在企业创新绩效形成过程的不同阶段中起到调节作用,其中潜在吸收能力有利于强化企业从创新开放度中获取知识,而现实吸收能力则在企业将获取的知识转化为创新绩效的过程中起到正向调节作用。第三,网络中心性越高,集群企业开放宽度对企业知识获取的正向效应越显著。研究结果有助于中国集群企业推进开放式创新的政策选择。     

The paradox of openness: Appropriability,external search and collaboration

To innovate, firms often need to draw from, and collaborate with, a large number of actors from outside their organization. At the same time, firms need also to be focused on capturing the returns from their innovative ideas. This gives rise to a paradox of openness—the creation of innovations often requires openness, but the commercialization of innovations requires protection. Based on econometric analysis of data from a UK innovation survey, we find a concave relationship between firms’ breadth of external search and formal collaboration for innovation, and the strength of the firms’ appropriability strategies. We show that this concave relationship is stronger for breadth of formal collaboration than for external search. There is also partial evidence suggesting that the relationship is less pronounced for both external search and formal collaboration if firms do not draw ideas from or collaborate with competitors. We explore the implications of these findings for the literature on open innovation and innovation strategy.     

Performance feedback,competitive repertoire simplicity,and technological evolution in a televised design contest

Research suggests that in industries where firms compete primarily on the relative merits of their designs, performance feedback from repeated episodes of competitive rivalry often leads firms to focus their resources on progressively fewer design features. Applying 0185 and 0190 concept of ‘competitive repertoire simplicity’ we argue that the shift from broad to narrow set of technological options marking technological evolution is the product of multi-level interaction between competitive design decisions made at the individual firm level, and technological knowledge that accumulates at the industry level. Taking advantage of an elimination tournament called Robot Wars – where competition is transparent, regulated and is marked by repeat participation – we examine repertoire simplicity and its escalation over iterative episodes of dyadic rivalry. Using a data set of 296 robotic designs over 4 episodes of this design contest we find evidence for (a) escalating repertoire simplicity causing convergence in design configurations; and (b) hypothesized, but rarely tested, links between competition at the individual team level and technological evolution at the population level.     

Why do firms publish? A systematic literature review and a conceptual framework

In this paper, we address the question of ‘Why do firms publish scientific papers?’. Research examining the competitive advantages that firms accrue from investment in R&D has provided evidence that such efforts can be associated with the voluntary disclosure of research findings in scientific publications. This form of scientific openness occurs despite potentially undermining the value-capturing process by generating knowledge spillovers and hindering the use of other instruments for protecting intellectual property (patents and secrecy). Our understanding of what leads firms to engage in scientific publishing remains relatively limited, however. We address this gap by presenting a systematic review of 164 studies examining firm publishing. We then develop a conceptual framework that outlines five incentives for firms to engage in publishing: (i) accessing external knowledge and resources; (ii) attracting and retaining researchers; (iii) supporting IP strategies; (iv) building the firm's reputation; and (v) supporting commercialization strategies. Mechanisms that relate incentives to publish to firms' major stakeholders – i.e. academia, industry, investors, users, and institutions – are also outlined in the framework. We conclude by setting out an agenda for future research.     

嵌入式系统uclinux和ecos的比较

嵌入式操作系统是嵌入式系统应用的核心。本文通过对两种典型的开源嵌入式操作系统的对比,分析和总结了嵌入式操作系统应用中的若干问题,归纳了嵌入式操作系统的选型依据。     

Propensity to patent, competition and China's foreign patenting surge

Foreign applications for Chinese patents have been growing by over 30% a year. This paper explores two hypotheses in explaining the foreign patenting surge in China: market covering and competitive threat. With foreign companies more deeply engaged with the Chinese economy, returns from protecting their intellectual property in China have increased. As domestic Chinese firms’ ability to imitate foreign technology gains strength and competition between foreign firms intensifies in the Chinese market, such competitive threat creates an urgency for protecting intellectual property. Using a database that comprises China's State Intellectual Property Office patents and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office patents, I find strong support for the competitive threat hypothesis. The estimates imply that competition between foreign firms in China can account for 36% of the annual growth of foreign patenting in China.