Background

International knowledge and markets are undoubtedly important factors for firms to success, especially for emerging and developing countries. A fundamental shift is taking place in the geography of innovation. As many emerging countries is growing rapidly, the global balance of innovation is being changed by new collaboration patterns. In order to avoid being left behind, the economic superpowers need to step out of their comfort zones and build partnerships with the new players in this new landscape.

Open innovation (OI), which enables the innovation moves easily between firms and break through the boundary between a firm and its surrounding environment, has been defined as “the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively” (Chesbrough, 2006a). The OI concept was also supplemented by the notion of open business models (OBMs), that is, a firm’s use of the assets of external partners to develop its business model (Chesbrough, 2006b). This strategy is orthogonal to the use of international OI, in that firms can combine OBMs with closed innovation strategies and all possible combinations (Vanhaverbeke and Chesbrough, 2014).

This project examines (1) the determinants and impact of the international dimension of open innovation and (2) the moderating effect of cultural, institutional and geographical differences on firms' choice of the direction of international open innovation and on the effect of open innovation on firms' innovation performance.