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An Open Innovation Project Typology of Exploration and Exploitation: Managerial Implications and Empirical Applications

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Majbritt Rostgaard Evald at University of Southern Denmark
Majbritt Rostgaard Evald
Ann Højbjerg Clarke at University of Southern Denmark
Ann Højbjerg Clarke
Britta Boyd at WIFU
Britta Boyd
  • WIFU
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Abstract and Figures

Despite an increased use of open innovation (OI) in firms, it is still a question of how firms can work successfully with OI in a way that enables them to exploit their current capabilities and simultaneously explore fundamentally new competencies. Firms need to be able to practice different forms of OI activities—inbound, outbound, or coupled—while simultaneously reaping the value these forms create. How firms reap value from different OI activities however remains under-investigated and consequently, we know very little about how these activities co-exist in firms. Before engaging in how firms can embrace different forms of OI activities simultaneously, we argue that there is a need to reassess how OI research approaches the idea of exploiting current capabilities and simultaneously exploring fundamentally new competencies. Based on the original framework of exploitation and exploration, a typology is proposed, which takes its departure at the project level in firms. The project level is promising as OI research has shown that OI at the firm level typically is a consequence of various OI initiatives at the project level. The value of the proposed typology and its applicability for firms is demonstrated through the case of Lego. The conceptual study results in a project typology of four generic OI approaches: inbound-exploration project; inbound-exploitation project; outbound-exploration project; and outbound-exploitation project. When these approaches are integrated, the coupled processes appear. Practical implications are derived with an overview of how managers can cope with different forms of OI strategically.
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An Open Innovation Project Typology of Exploration
and Exploitation: Managerial Implications
and Empirical Applications
Majbritt Rostgaard Evald
1
&Ann Højbjerg Clarke
1
&Britta Boyd
2
Received: 7 March 2016 /Accepted: 3 February 2020/
#Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract
Despite an increased use of open innovation (OI) in firms, it is still a question of how
firms can work successfully with OI in a way that enables them to exploit their current
capabilities and simultaneously explore fundamentally new competencies. Firms need
to be able to practice different forms of OI activities—inbound, outbound, or coupled—
while simultaneously reaping the value these forms create. How firms reap value from
different OI activities however remains under-investigated and consequently, we know
very little about how these activities co-exist in firms. Before engaging in how firms
can embrace different forms of OI activities simultaneously, we argue that there is a
need to reassess how OI research approaches the idea of exploiting current capabilities
and simultaneously exploring fundamentally new competencies. Based on the original
framework of exploitation and exploration, a typology is proposed, which takes its
departure at the project level in firms. The project level is promising as OI research has
shown that OI at the firm level typically is a consequence of various OI initiatives at the
project level. The value of the proposed typology and its applicability for firms is
demonstrated through the case of Lego. The conceptual study results in a project
typology of four generic OI approaches: inbound-exploration project; inbound-
exploitation project; outbound-exploration project; and outbound-exploitation project.
When these approaches are integrated, the coupled processes appear. Practical impli-
cations are derived with an overview of how managers can cope with different forms of
OI strategically.
Keywords Open innovation .Inbound .Outbound .Exploitation .Exploration .Project
level
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-020-00642-4
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-020-
00642-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
*Majbritt Rostgaard Evald
mre@sam.sdu.dk
Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Published online: 11 February 2020
Journal of the Knowledge Economy (2021) 12:740–755
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
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