Open, Semi-Open and Closed Innovators: Towards an Explanation of Degree of Openness

Andrés Barge-Gil

Industry and Innovation, 2010, vol. 17, issue 6, 577-607

Abstract: There is much controversy in the literature over the relationship between the openness of firms' innovation strategies and firm characteristics such as size, R&D intensity and sector. We argue that the controversy arises because, both theoretically and empirically, only a binary, open vs. closed, strategy has been considered. In this paper, we distinguish among three firm strategies: open, semi-open and closed, drawing upon a panel of Spanish firms (2004-2006) using data from Community Innovation Survey (CIS)-type surveys, and two different indicators of openness. Our results show that open innovators are smaller and less R&D intensive than semi-open ones, although larger and more R&D intensive than closed innovators. These results reduce some of the controversies, and show that two conflicting forces, absorptive capacity and a “need” effect, are at stake in open innovation strategies.

Keywords: Open innovation strategies; collaboration; size; R&D; sector; technology policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (34)

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DOI: 10.1080/13662716.2010.530839

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