Implementing open innovation: technological, organizational and managerial tools

The concept of Open Innovation (OI) has generated a great interest in the last decade (Chesbrough, 2003). Over time, Open Innovation Strategy was drawn as a “must” for many firms in different sectors. Implementing an open firm means defining a set of variables: the ‘who’ issue, i.e. with whom the collaboration should take place (Laursen and Salter, 2006), the ‘when’ issue, i.e. which phase(s) of the innovation process should be opened (Lazzarotti and Manzini, 2009), and the ‘how’ issue, i.e. how openness should be implemented. As regards the ‘how’, little attention has still been committed on the set of tools firms can use to support the implementation of OI and, hence, on how firms can create a positive environment that encourages people at leveraging existing technological capabilities outside the boundaries of the organization (Hung and Chou, 2013) or at capturing and benefiting from external sources of knowledge in order to enhance current technological developments (Huizing, 2011).