How Do Human Resource Practices Strengthen Open Innovation? An Exploratory Analysis

Svenja Paul, Nadine Roijakkers and Letizia Mortara

Chapter 1 in Open Innovation: Unveiling the Power of the Human Element, 2017, pp 1-27 from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.

Abstract: How do human resource practices strengthen open innovation (OI) activities? This inductive study of six cases leads to propositions exploring this question, which has not been empirically investigated yet. We investigate the relation between human resource practices and an employee’s willingness to embrace OI in six cases that include the perspectives of chief executive officers (CEOs), human resource managers, and experts from Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom regarding human resource practices in both small and large companies actively pursuing OI. The findings reveal that when implementing OI, it is people’s thinking and attitudes towards this approach to innovation that can strengthen OI activities. Human resource practices can influence peoples’ behaviours and attitudes towards OI by strategically selecting candidates, by rewarding employees, and by establishing a strategically focused climate in which employees are stimulated and feel comfortable being open, talking to others about their ideas, etc. Training practices were found to be negligible. The findings further reveal a number of human resource challenges that need to be overcome when organizing for OI.

Keywords: Open Innovation; Human Side; Organizational; Skills; Capabilities; Readiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/pdf/10.1142/9789813140851_0001 (application/pdf)
https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/9789813140851_0001 (text/html)
Ebook Access is available upon purchase.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wsi:wschap:9789813140851_0001

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in World Scientific Book Chapters from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().