Title: Limits of open innovation: bridging boundaries between technological and non-technological innovation

Authors: Fernando G. Sánchez-Henríquez; Ángel Sevil; Roberto S. Vassolo

Addresses: Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad del Desarrollo, Avenida Plaza 680, Las Condes, Chile ' Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad del Desarrollo, Avenida Plaza 680, Las Condes, Chile ' Department of Business Policy and Strategy, IAE Business School, Universidad Austral, Pilar, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Abstract: Research on open innovation has mainly focused on managing knowledge flow across organisational boundaries for technological (product and process) innovations. However, the effect of external knowledge sources on non-technological innovation (process, marketing, managerial) has not been assessed yet. Thus, this paper extends the study of open innovation to non-technological (organisational and marketing) innovations, arguing that the effect of external knowledge sources on innovation is contingent on the type of innovation an organisation pursues. Using a panel data from 3,977 firms-year observations obtained from three consecutive panels of the Chilean Innovation Survey (2009-2014), we show that external knowledge sources have a u-shape relationship with technological innovations but a positive relationship with non-technological innovations. We contribute to innovation literature by proposing a conceptual model of innovation openness and creating a theoretical bridge between the emerging open innovation literature and the growing literature on organisational innovation.

Keywords: innovation; technological innovation; non-technological innovation; Chile.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBE.2024.139788

International Journal of Business Environment, 2024 Vol.15 No.3/4, pp.265 - 292

Received: 25 Nov 2022
Accepted: 09 Mar 2023
Published online: 05 Jul 2024 *

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