The Emergence of Openness: How Firms Learn Selective Revealing in Open Innovation
May 15, 2013 Leave a comment
The Emergence of Openness: How Firms Learn Selective Revealing in Open Innovation
Joachim Henkel TUM School of Management – Technische Universität München (TUM) ; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
Simone Schöberl McKinsey & Company Inc.
Oliver Alexy Technische Universität München (TUM), TUM School of Management
March 28, 2013
Abstract:
Open innovation is often facilitated by strong intellectual property rights (IPRs), but it may also function, and even be boosted, when firms deliberately waive some of their IPRs. Yet, extant literature falls short of explaining how firms learn to practice this behavior. To address this question, we conduct an empirical study in a segment of the computer component industry which traditionally has taken a rather proprietary stance. With the advent of the open source operating system Linux, firms increasingly waived their IPRs on software drivers. We trace and analyze this process using both qualitative and quantitative methods. We find that component makers had to go through a learning process to realize that and how selectively waiving IPRs may be beneficial for their business. We uncover customer demand as a trigger, organizational inertia as an obstacle, and positive experiences as subsequent driver of this learning process. We also identify differences between uni-directional and bi-directional openness, and find that firms’ motives relate to how they implement openness. Of particular interest are the important role of an external trigger to rethink an engrained industry practice of strong IP protection, and the development of openness into a new dimension of competition.
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