Open innovation and technology development process: the gap on partnership adoption from a case study perspective

Abstract

Open innovation is one of the strategies employed by enterprises to optimize innovation processes through the establishment of partnerships in technology development. Despite the importance of open innovation, there have been few studies on application cases or studies that identify practices and tools supporting this strategy. This study firstly aimed at analyzing reference models used in technology development processes (TDP) from the literature. This showed that TDP reference models only superficially address the establishment of partnerships in innovation processes. Then, a similar analysis was carried out with a large enterprise belonging to the aeronautical sector. This analysis identified the company’s level of adequacy to open innovation, the benefits and the difficulties resulting from its use. This analysis showed that the enterprise is changing the process of TDP according to open innovation and through two practices of interest: the structuring of teams according to technology maturity and the strategic guidance for encouraging the adoption of partnership in these projects. In addition to new practices, the study identifies challenges for the management of innovation, as the adoption of systematic analysis of partnerships and their impact throughout the TDP, and suggestions for future research.