Open innovation and globalisation: Theory, evidence and implications

Abstract

Summary Both the descriptive and regression results reveal a number of insights. This section summarizes the main results of the empirical analysis and ties them into the theoretical discussion above. We defer a discussion of potential policy implications until the end of the report. Open innovation matters. Open innovation practices have a strong impact both on the capacity for novel innovation and on actual innovation performance. In general it is the breadth of these practices – i.e. the range of interfaces with the external environment - that generates the positive effects. A partial exception here is Belgium where, while breadth is positively correlated with innovativeness, it is open innovation depth that positively impacts innovation performance. A broad based, holistic approach to open innovation may give greater returns than focus deeply on single aspect. Taking the results together, what seem to be most important are the overall strategies as opposed to individual dimensions of open innovation. For example for many individual dimensions of open innovation such as search, external innovation and collaboration, no impact was found. And even when effects are found, these are generally much smaller than for overall innovation. This is particularly the case for impacts on innovation performance, where overall open innovation is very strongly significant, while individual dimensions are generally either insignificant or only weakly significant. This is also somewhat the case for impacts on novel innovativeness, where in particular open innovation breadth is strongly significant. An exception concerning individual dimensions is Norway, where all individual dimensions are positive and significant.