OPEN INNOVATION GAINS MOMENTUM

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INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER – VOLUME 47 NUMBER 3

Still, survey shows internal employees generate most critical innovations

A recent survey of 125 large U.S. companies shows that many people are opening up to and practicing the idea of open innovation, where organizations combine external input with internal ideas.

Based on the research, Purdue professor Sabine Brunswicker and University of California, Berkeley professor Henry Chesbrough said 78 percent of businesses practice open innovation. In fact, 71 percent of those businesses have increased management support, and 82 percent have increased open innovation activity to advance their technology, processes or services.

But the degree of adoption varies across sectors, with open innovation adopted more widely in high-tech manufacturing sectors and trade and retail firms as opposed to low-tech manufacturing and financial services.

All the companies questioned in the first large-scale survey to examine open innovation in large corporations had more than $250 million in annual sales.