Business & Information Management

Despite its popularity as a strategy to accelerate innovations there is evidence that open innovation does not always increase innovation performance. Extant literature provides inconsistent and inconclusive arguments in respect of the relationship between open innovation practices and innovation performance. Existing theories mostly have an internal focus and fall short of explaining why some firms succeed in open innovation initiatives and why others fail. Open innovation is about knowledge flows. We argue that boundary conditions matter in innovation performance and sequential coherence can explain why some succeed while others fail in open innovation. A qualitative inquiry we made reveals that sequential coherence that facilitates the knowledge transfer at boundary level influence innovation performance in open innovation initiatives. Sequential coherence is measured through the push and the pull effects by willingness and ability of the participants of teacher firm and the preparedness and ability of the participants from the student firm respectively. We trust that our findings bridge a gap in open innovation literature. These initial findings could be generalized through a quantitative study with larger samples.  Managerial implications of the finding is that ability to scan the entire chain of knowledge flow across boundaries and taking corrective measures for any bottlenecks or hindrances observed  can bring better results from open innovation initiatives. Further, sequential coherence leads to multiple research opportunities in furthering our knowledge in open innovation.

Technology adoption is a concern of business practitioners, policy makers and academics. Slow or low adoption can deprive stakeholders from intended benefits. Existing theories concerning technology adoption mostly focus on factors within a single organization. In this concept paper, we argue that sequential coherence which addresses knowledge flows that cross borders between organizations can provide enhanced insights in understanding technology adoption. Sequential coherence takes into consideration factors of both the transferor organization and the recipient organization. We propose a novel conceptual model of technology adoption based on sequential coherence. It takes into consideration the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of using technology. We have coined the model CUE (Coherence, Usefulness and Ease of use) of technology adoption. The CUE model can be used by practitioners, policy makers and academics.

The objective of this article is to present a metaphor concerning the terminology of open innovation. This metaphor will help both academics and practitioners in getting a deeper understanding of the terms and their relationships in this emerging field. An electrical circuit is used as the metaphor. In it, the following open innovation terms are included: inbound open innovation, outbound open innovation, sequential coherence, dynamic innovation capabilities, knowledge flow, absorptive capacity, organizational inertia, and innovation performance. A corresponding term for each one of these open innovation terms is given in the metaphor. Within an organization, open innovation involves the internal exploration of external knowledge and external exploitation of internal knowledge. Open innovation is gaining wide attention of researchers as it impacts innovation performance of organizations. Systematic metaphor analysis is a qualitative research method. A metaphor is an implicit comparison in which a word or phrase that originally denotes a certain object or concept is applied to another. Time tested relationships among variables in the metaphor of electric circuit offer new insights in the domain of open innovation.