Strategic Outsourcing: An International Journal

Open innovation: an analysis of twelve years of research

Mokter Hossain, Muhammad Anees-ur-Rehman,
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SO
9,1
22
Received 7 September 2015
Revised 21 November 2015
Accepted 29 November 2015
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Strategic Outsourcing: An
International Journal
Vol. 9 No. 1, 2016
pp. 22-37
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1753-8297
DOI 10.1108/SO-09-2015-0022
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1753-8297.htm
Open innovation: an analysis of
twelve years of research
Mokter Hossain
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management,
Institute of Strategy and Venturing, Aalto University,
Espoo, Finland, and
Muhammad Anees-ur-Rehman
Department of Marketing, Oulu Business School, University of Oulu,
Oulu, Finland
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore patterns and developments in the open innovation
literature.
Design/methodology/approach – A bibliometric analysis was performed by classifying 411
articles in a range of key attributes.
Findings – Europe (61 per cent) as a region of data source was higher than all other regions together.
As a unit of analysis, firm level (65 per cent) was more than all other levels together. Qualitative studies
were mostly case-based, and quantitative studies were largely based on survey and panel data.
Regression was a widely used analytical technique.
Originality/value – The authors identified avenues to address overlooked research topics, increase
cross-continental collaboration, diversity of research methods beyond case study and survey, etc. Based
on findings, the authors outlined some future research directions.
Keywords Research design, Open innovation, Analytical technique, Pattern of authorship,
Unit of analysis
Paper type Literature review
Introduction
Ever since the concept of open innovation was introduced by Chesbrough in 2003, it has
become a new paradigm for innovation and technology management. Due to its high
relevance, it has received high attention from scholars and practitioners alike. Open
innovation has emerged as one of hot topics in management science (Huizingh, 2011; Su
and Lee, 2012). During the past decade, many firms have stimulated their employees
toward openness and encouraged them to interact with external environments to find
ideas to improve products, processes and services (Chesbrough, 2003). Thus, many
firms have become more effective in acquiring external knowledge for internal
innovation and taking internal innovation to external markets. Open innovation has
been practiced by well-established firms from decades ago (Freeman and Soete, 1974;
Hargadon, 2003; Trott and Hartmann, 2009). Scholars of the open innovation field are
Mokter Hossain is grateful to the Finnish Cultural Foundation for funding this study. Muhammad
Anees-ur-Rehman is grateful to the Center for International Mobility (CIMO) Finland for funding
this study.
 increasingly advocating the importance of open innovation for firms, whereas many Open
scholars consider it as a passé (Chesbrough and Brunswicker, 2014). However, the innovation
emergence of the open innovation concept in the academic literature in 2003 led to a new,
stimulating and refreshing interest from scholars, practitioners and policy makers
(Dahlander and Gann, 2010).
Even though there are numerous successful cases, many firms have failed to realize
the value of open innovation (Salter et al., 2014), and most initiatives to engage external 23
actors fail (Dahlander and Piezunka, 2014). Hence, the recent focus of studies on open
innovation has increased toward contingencies and challenges organizations face when
involving external contributors (Foss et al., 2011; Afuah and Tucci, 2012; Felin and
Zenger, 2014). Scholarly work and managerial practice have given limited attention to
the challenges that individuals stumble upon with open innovation activities (Salter
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et al., 2014). Given the relevance of open innovation, it has gained significant attention
over the past decade and resulted in a large and growing number of articles in scholarly
and managerial publications. Despite burgeoning literature on open innovation, the
concept is not clear, and comparing empirical findings is challenging because of the
fragmented literature (Dahlander and Gann, 2010).
Several conceptual and review articles have been published on open innovation.
Dahlander and Gann (2010) clarify the definition and types of openness. Huizingh (2011)
shows the various types of innovation based on the openness of the process and the outcome.
In a review, van de Vrande et al. (2010) find that among 88 reviewed studies, 38 per cent were
theoretical, 39 per cent were qualitative and the rest, 23 per cent, were quantitative.
The literature on open innovation has mostly covered topics such as inward and
outward open innovation, alliances, joint ventures, networks, suppliers, users,
competitors, communities, innovation and performance (Felin and Zenger, 2014;
Gambardella and Panico, 2014). However, van de Vrande et al. (2010) argued that open
innovation can be connected to other disciplines or management areas such as
absorptive capacity, external corporate venturing, human resource management
(HRM), marketing and globalization of R&D. Open innovation literature includes
discussions regarding strategic, organizational, behavioral, knowledge, legal and
business perspectives (Enkel et al., 2009).
Lichtenthaler (2011) pointed out that business models and innovation markets,
among others, can be considered important subjects for open innovation studies. A more
recent review by West and Bogers (2014) found that aligning an open innovation
initiative to a business model, examining the entire open process, and the limits and
moderators of the process model have limitedly been studied in-depth.
Many questions and contexts are still remained unexplored (West et al., 2014). Hence,
it is timely to examine the present state of open innovation literature from a novel
perspective. The methodology of the study has been borrowed from studies of other
disciplines such as new product development by Page and Schirr (2008), new service
development by Papastathopoulou and Hultink (2012) and international marketing by
Aulakh and Kotabe (1993) and by Nakata and Huang (2005).
The purpose of this paper is to explore patterns and developments in the open
innovation literature by answering the following questions:
Q1. How extensive is the open innovation literature?
Q2. What is the collaborative pattern of authorship?
 SO Q3. Where are the geographical concentrations of authors and data sources?
9,1 Q4. Which methodologies and analytical techniques are used?
Q5. What are the major research streams?
Q6. What are the issues that need attention in future research?
24 The remaining of the paper is structured as follows. The next section describes the
methodology used for this study purpose. Then, various analysis and results are
included. The final section concludes and points out avenues for future research.

Methodology
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We chose to consider articles published from 2003 to June 30, 2014. To find articles that
focused on open innovation, a simple and frequently used method was used (Dahlander
and Gann, 2010; Shafique, 2013). We chose the Web of Science database as the source for
articles. We used “open innovation” in the topic field in the Web of Science database to
find relevant articles. The articles were extracted on July 1, 2014. Our aim was to find
articles in broader business and management disciplines. Hence, we selected “business
economics” and “operation research and management science” under research areas and
“article” as documents type. To limit our search to articles published in English, we
selected only “English” as the language option. In this way, we found 503 such articles.
We read abstracts of all the selected articles to ascertain whether an article focused on
open innovation. In some cases, when the focus of an article was not clear, we read the
full article to understand its focus. Some notable studies of open innovation were
retracted, which were excluded from our review. Thus, a total of 411 articles were finally
selected for this study.
The study applied a content analysis approach, which is frequently used in literature
reviews (Aulakh and Kotabe, 1993; Nakata and Huang, 2005; Page and Schirr, 2008;
Papastathopoulou and Hultink, 2012; Goyal et al., 2013; Kumar et al., 2013; Piekkari
et al., 2010). Many of the classifications in the content analysis of this study were simple and
straightforward. Cluster analysis was performed on the major classifications. Cluster
analysis is defined by Hair et al. (2003, p. 469) as “an objective methodology” to define
homogeneous groups within a population. A number of classifier variables were used,
relating to general characteristics (publication year, journal and domain); focus of research;
research methodology and techniques, including sample size and response rate; unit of
analysis – firm, individual, project/team, business units, ecosystems/communities, national,
regional or international; regional classification of authors and data sources; industry; and
list of keywords. The necessary information was tabulated in separate spreadsheets by the
two authors and compared to any inconsistencies. Tabulated information was found to be
mostly consistent; however, some differences were found and corrected after mutual
discussion. Classifying an article into a particular industry was challenging, and personal
judgment was needed. As our adopted method for data collection and analysis was well
documented in articles from other disciplines, such as new product development and
international business, we simply followed the protocol of those previously published
articles. We did chi-square tests using SPSS program to find out how the publications
significantly shifted across three distinct periods.
 Analysis and results Open
The period from 2003, when studies on open innovation started, to mid-2014 was innovation
considered for the review study. Following the study by Papastathopoulou and Hultink
(2012), and to demonstrate the development of open innovation literature, the articles
were categorized into three periods, with the first period representing four years,
2003-2006. The second period represented the subsequent four years, 2007-2010.
However, the third period was three-and-a-half years. We categorized about three equal 25
periods for the sake of simplicity and to follow previously published similar studies, in
general. We were aware of the fact that the earliest period included a very small number
of articles. The third period included 63 per cent of the total articles, whereas the first
period includes only 5 per cent. The second period included six times more articles than
the first period and half as many as the third period (Table I).
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Yearly publication and leading journals

Figure 1 shows the number of articles published on open innovation between 2003 and
June 30, 2014. The number of articles for the year 2014 only includes articles published
up to June 30, 2014. In the first three years, 2003-2005, the number of published articles
was very insignificant (only six). At a nascent stage in the open innovation field,
however, a significant number of articles were published in 2006. While the number of
publication declined in 2007, it had been growing consistently since the year 2008. The
number of publications was very high and stable in 2010-2012 and peaked in 2013.
About 70 articles per year were published in 2010-2012, whereas 88 articles were
published in 2013. The data from the first half of 2014 suggest a declining tendency in
the number of published articles.

Periods No. (%)

2003-2006: early period 21 5

2007-2010: advanced period 131 32
2011-2014: recent period 259 63 Table I.
Total 411 100 Time periods studied

100
90
80
Number of articles (#)

70
60
50
40
30
20
Figure 1.
10 Number of articles
0 published between
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2003 and June 30,
2014
Year of publication
 SO Table II includes the journals that were actively involved in the publication of articles on
9,1 open innovation. The 411 articles appeared in 92 different journals. Altogether, 23
journals published at least four articles each. From 411 articles, 324 (79 per cent) articles
appeared in these 23 journals. The rest, 87 (21 per cent) articles, were published in 69
different journals. Journals such as R&D Management, Research Policy and
Research-Technology Management played a significant role, not only in the initial period
26 but also in the recent period. Along with the above three journals, a significant number
of articles were published in journals such as Technovation, International Journal of
Technology Management, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Technology
Analysis & Strategic Management, California Management Review, Technological
Forecasting & Social Change and Creativity and Innovation Management. About 60 per
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Cumulative
Journal titles 2003-2006 2007-2010 2011-2014 Total (%) total (%)

R&D Management 6 26 13 45 (11) 45 (11)

Research Policy 4 10 20 34 (8) 79 (19)
Research-Technology Management 4 12 17 33 (8) 112 (27)
Technovation 0 9 23 32 (8) 144 (35)
International Journal of
Technology Management 3 17 11 31 (8) 175 (43)
Journal of Product Innovation
Management 0 4 11 15 (4) 190 (47)
Technology Analysis & Strategic
Management 0 3 12 15 (4) 205 (51)
CaliforniaManagement Review 1 5 8 14 (3) 219 (54)
Technological Forecasting & Social
Change 0 1 12 13 (3) 232 (57)
Creativity and Innovation
Management 0 2 8 10 (2) 242 (59)
Innovation: Management, Policy &
Practice 0 1 8 9 (2) 251 (61)
Management Decision 0 3 6 9 (2) 260 (63)
The Service Industries Journal 0 0 9 9 (2) 269 (65)
Industry and Innovation 0 4 4 8 (2) 277 (67)
International Entrepreneurship
and Management Journal 0 0 8 8 (2) 285 (69)
MIT Sloan Management Review 1 2 4 7 (2) 292 (71)
Organization Science 1 2 4 7 (2) 299 (73)
IEEE Transactions on
Engineering Management 0 1 4 5 (1) 304 (74)
Harvard Business Review 0 2 2 4 (1) 308 (75)
Industrial Marketing Management 0 1 3 4 (1) 312 (76)
Journal of Business Research 0 1 3 4 (1) 316 (77)
Journal of Engineering and
Table II. Technology Management 0 1 3 4 (1) 320 (78)
Distribution of Management Science 0 2 2 4 (1) 324 (79)
articles by journal Other 69 Journals 1 22 64 87 (21) 411 (100)
over time Total 21 131 259 411 (100)
 cent of the articles appeared in the ten aforementioned journals. For example, the Open
journals R&D Management and International Journal of Technology Management innovation
published a large number of published articles in the advanced period, 2007-2010.
However, the publication figures for these two journals plummeted significantly in the
recent period. In contrast, journals such as Research Policy, Research-Technology
Management and Technovation increased their numbers of published articles more
significantly in recent years, 2011-2014, than in the previous years, 2006-2010. 27
Authorship patterns
We classified the authors by country for each of the three periods (Figure 2). The articles
were written by authors from 35 countries. The authors from the USA were dominant in
the literature in all three periods. In the recent period, both the UK and Germany had
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leading positions, although the UK increased its position significantly in the recent
period, 2011-2014. Germany was more dominant in the advanced period, 2007-2010.
Some European countries such as Spain, The Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland,
Sweden and Denmark were significantly represented in the open innovation literature.
Spain and Belgium were not so visible in the early period but became highly noticeable
in the last two periods, whereas both The Netherlands and Sweden were key players in
all three periods. Some Asian countries such as Taiwan, South Korea and China were
absent in the early period and had little presence in the advanced period but had
noticeable presence in the recent period. The majority of the authors in developing
countries were located in China.
Figure 3 illustrates the number of authors for each article in each of the three periods.
The articles with one and two authors were very prominent in the early
period, 2003-2006, whereas an article with three or more authors was very rare in that
period. However, in the advanced period (2007-2010), single, two and three author-based
articles were prevalent. Articles with more than three authors were sparse. In the recent

160

140

120

100
2011-2014
Article (#)

80 2007-2010
2003-2006
60

40

20

0
The…

Figure 2.
Italy

Turkey
Portugal
USA

Peru
Spain

Belgium

Norway

Japan

Brazil
UK

Canada

Estonia

Hungary
China

Greece

Poland
Singapore
Germany

HongKong
Sweden
Denmark
Taiwan

France
Austria

Ireland
Finland

Australia

Slovenia
South Korea

Columbia
Switzerland

Argentina
Luxembourg

Distribution of
authorship by
country in three
periods
Country
 SO period, two and three author-based articles were significantly higher than articles
9,1 written by single authors.
We attempted to understand the diversity of authorship across the three periods by
country. Table III shows the authorship statistics for single country and multiple-country
categories. When authors of an article were from the same country, that article was grouped
in the category of “single country”. In contrast, if an article was co-authored by scholars from
28 two or more countries, that article was grouped in the category of “multiple-country”. The
higher number of studies in the single country category hints at less collaborative work.
About three-fourth of the articles were in the category of single country. A similar kind of
trend appeared in all three periods. In the second period, however, the gap between the two
categories was narrower, and in the third period, the gap was wider. The authorship in the
categories of single and multiple countries did not shift significantly over time (␹2 ⫽ 2.167,
df ⫽ 2, p ⫽ 0.338).
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In addition to categorizing the authors in the category of single and multiple-country,

authors were categorized according to regional collaboration (Table IV). If the authors of
an article were from different regions (see Table III for categorization), they fell into the
category of “interregional”, and if authors were from the same region, then those authors
fell in the category of “intraregional” (the regional classification used here is same as in
Table VI). We found that intraregional authorship was highly prevalent, with 84 per
cent of total articles and 85 per cent of articles from both the 2007-2010 and 2011-2014
periods having intraregional authorship. The interregional authorship was
significantly high in the early period but very low both in the advanced period and the
recent period. It accounted for 27 per cent of articles in the early period, but only 15 per
cent and 16 per cent in the advanced and recent periods, respectively. Over time, the

100
2003-2006 2007-2010 2011-2014
90
80
70
60
Frequency (#)

50
40
30
20
Figure 3.
10
Number of authors in
each article across 0
One Two Three More than three
three periods
Authorship

Authorship Total (%) 2003-2006 (%) 2007-2010 (%) 2011-2014 (%)

Single-country 306 (74) 14 (67) 103 (79) 189 (73)

Table III. Multiple-country 105 (26) 7 (33) 28 (21) 70 (27)
Authorship in Total 411 (100) 21 (100) 131 (100) 259 (100)
categories of single-
and multiple-country Notes: ␹2 ⫽ 2.167; df ⫽ 2; p ⫽ 0.338
 authorship trend in regional collaboration did not shift significantly (␹2 ⫽ 1.321, df ⫽ 2, Open
p ⫽ 0.516). innovation
Table V shows the authorships pattern in the categories of developed and developing
countries. Here, we considered only the sole or first authors of the articles because in
general, the first authors have higher contribution than other authors of an article.
Around 97 per cent of the articles were published by authors from developed countries,
while only 3 per cent were published by authors from developing countries. 29
Furthermore, in the first period, no articles were written by the authors from developing
countries. Only two articles were published by authors from developing countries in the
second period. In the third period, the number of articles increased sharply to 12. The
share of developing countries increased steadily from the early period to the advanced
period and was significantly higher in the recent period. Over time, the authorship
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pattern in the categories of developed and developing countries did not shift
significantly (␹2 ⫽ 3.332, p ⫽ 0.189).

The geographical source of data and the unit of analysis

The data collection sources were categorized into six regions: Europe, Asia, North
America, South America, Australia and multi-region – when data collection source was
from more than one region (Table VI). Europe as a region was at the top of the list. The
data collected for 158 (61 per cent) articles were from Europe. The percentage of data
collection from Europe grew increasingly as it was 50 per cent, 56 per cent and 63 per
cent in 2003-2006, 2007-2010 and 2011-2014, respectively. Data sourced from
multi-region was also significant, with a slightly declining trend. Although Asia as a
data collection source was absent in the first period, its presence increased significantly
in the last two periods. North America as a source of data had no strong presence at
any point and dropped greatly in the recent period. South America and Oceania were
very insignificant as regions regarding data collection. Over time, the source of data by
region did not shift significantly (␹2 ⫽ 10.578, p ⫽ 0.391).
The articles were coded for eight levels of analysis: firm, individual, industry,
project, national, research center, regional, international and others (Table VII).

Authors’ locations Total (%) 2003-2006 (%) 2007-2010 (%) 2011-2014 (%)

Interregional 52 (16) 4 (27) 15 (15) 33 (16) Table IV.

Intraregional 272 (84) 11 (73) 83 (85) 178 (84) Authorship in
Total 324 (100) 15 (100) 98 (100) 211 (100) categories of
interregional and
Notes: ␹2 ⫽ 1.321; df ⫽ 2; p ⫽ 0.516 intraregional

Authors’ locations Total (%) 2003-2006 (%) 2007-2010 (%) 2011-2014 (%)

Developed countries 397 (97) 21 (100) 129 (98) 247 (95)

Developing countries 14 (3) 0 (⫺) 2 (2) 12 (5) Table V.
Total 411 (100) 21 (100) 131 (100) 259 (100) Authorship in
developed and
Notes: ␹2 ⫽ 3.332; df ⫽ 2; p ⫽ 0.189 developing countries
 SO Throughout the three periods, most of the studies were in the firm level (around 60
9,1 per cent). Even though the studies in the individual level were limited in the early
period and advanced periods, its share increased significantly in the recent period,
2011-2014. The industry level was less explored than the individual level. However,
studies in the industry level gained attention earlier than the individual level in the
literature; we found that in 2007-2010, there were 13 articles in the industry level
30 whereas only five in the individual level. Studies in the project level increased
significantly in the recent period, 2011-2014. Studies in the regional and the
international levels got limited attention in the literature. Over time, the units of
analysis did not shift significantly (␹2 ⫽ 16.518, p ⫽ 0.417).

Research designs and analytical techniques

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We identified the research design used in each article to understand the methodological
pattern in the open innovation literature. Previous studies classified conceptual versus
empirical, and qualitative versus quantitative studies (Aulakh and Kotabe, 1993; Li and
Cavusgil, 1995). However, Nakata and Huang (2005) went a step further by combining
the above two typologies and formed four basic research designs – conceptual
qualitative, conceptual quantitative, empirical qualitative and empirical quantitative.
We followed the insightful typology of Nakata and Huang (2005). Conceptual qualitative
studies include traditional literature reviews to develop theoretical models and

Regions of data source Total (%) 2003-2006 (%) 2007-2010 (%) 2011-2014 (%)

Europe 158 (61) 4 (50) 44 (56) 110 (63)

Asia 30 (11) 0 (⫺) 8 (10) 22 (13)
North America 18 (7) 1 (13) 9 (12) 8 (5)
South America 2 (1) 0 (⫺) 0 (⫺) 2 (1)
Oceania 1 (0) 0 (⫺) 1 (1) 0 (⫺)
Multi-region 52 (20) 3 (38) 16 (21) 33 (19)
Table VI. Total 261 (100) 8 (100) 78 (100) 175 (100)
Sources of data by
region Notes: ␹2 ⫽ 10.578; df ⫽ 10; p ⫽ 0.391

Unit of analysis Total (%) 2003-2006 (%) 2007-2010 (%) 2011-2014 (%)

Firm 229 (65) 10 (59) 74 (68) 145 (65)

Individual 33 (9) 2 (12) 5 (5) 26 (12)
Industry 32 (9) 1 (6) 13 (12) 18 (8)
Project 21 (6) 1 (6) 4 (4) 16 (7)
National 9 (3) 1 (6) 3 (3) 5 (2)
Research center 9 (3) 0 (⫺) 5 (5) 4 (2)
Regional 4 (1) 1 (6) 0 (⫺) 3 (1)
International 3 (1) 0 (⫺) 1 (1) 2 (1)
Others 10 (3) 1 (6) 4 (4) 5 (2)
Table VII. Total 350 (100) 17 (100) 109 (100) 224 (100)
Unit of analysis over
time Notes: ␹2 ⫽ 16.518; df ⫽ 16; p ⫽ 0.417
 frameworks. Other studies in the category of conceptual qualitative studies are of the Open
managerial type. Conceptual quantitative studies use mathematical expressions, innovation
sometimes using secondary data to present a case or to develop models. Empirical
qualitative studies are based on qualitative approaches such as interviews, case studies,
observation and ethnography. In contrast, empirical quantitative studies use data
collection such as surveys, experiments and secondary data. The analysis of empirical
quantitative studies demonstrates results quantitatively. Some studies naturally 31
undertook more than one major research technique.
In the studies, empirical studies (364; 82 per cent) significantly outnumbered
conceptual studies (80; 18 per cent) (Table VIII). The higher proportion of empirical
studies indicates a high degree of rigor (Li and Cavusgil, 1995). We found higher
proportion of empirical studies in the open innovation literature. A significant number
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of articles (197; 44 per cent) were in the category of empirical qualitative. These studies
were mostly based on case studies and interviews. From all of the 411 articles, 167 (38
per cent) were in the empirical quantitative category. Surveys were the most common
method for primary data collection. However, a large number of empirical quantitative
studies used secondary data, including panel data. Furthermore, conceptual qualitative
studies represented a significant number of articles (74; 17 per cent). Studies were
unevenly distributed across the four categories. The proportion of conceptual
qualitative studies declined steadily from the early period to the recent period. In the
same vein, the number of empirical qualitative studies also declined slightly from the
early period to the recent period. However, empirical quantitative studies grew over
time. Over time, the research design in data collection did not shift significantly (␹2 ⫽
13.381, p ⫽ 0.037).

Research design Total (%) 2003-2006 (%) 2007-2010 (%) 2011-2014 (%)

Conceptual qualitative 74 (17) 6 (22) 31 (21) 37 (14)

Literature review 9 (2) 0 (⫺) 5 (3) 4 (1)
Others 65 (15) 6 (22) 26 (18) 33 (12)
Conceptual quantitative 6 (1) 0 (⫺) 2 (1) 4 (1)
Secondary data 2 (⫺) 0 (⫺) 1 (1) 1 (⫺)
No secondary data 4 (1) 0 (⫺) 1 (1) 3 (1)
Empirical qualitative 197 (44) 15 (56) 72 (49) 110 (41)
Case study 111 (25) 6 (22) 42 (28) 63 (23)
Interviews 86 (19) 9 (33) 30 (20) 47 (17)
Empirical quantitative 167 (38) 6 (22) 43 (29) 118 (44)
Survey 98 (22) 4 (15) 26 (18) 68 (25)
Panel data 24 (5) 2 (7) 5 (3) 17 (6)
Secondary data 41 (9) 0 (⫺) 12 (8) 29 (11)
Experiment 4 (1) 0 (⫺) 0 (⫺) 4 (1)
Totala 444 (100) 27 (100) 148 (100) 269 (100)
Table VIII.
Notes: ␹2 ⫽ 13.381; df ⫽ 6; p⫽ 0.037; a the total figure 444 is more than 411 due to multiple methods Research design over
used in some articles time
 SO Industry Articles (#) (%)
9,1
Multi-industry 156 62
ICT 33 13
Medical and health 20 8
Electronics 14 6
32 Research centers 9 4
Individual 6 2
Automobile 5 2
Table X. Food & beverage 4 2
Leading industries Media 3 1
explored in the open Public sector 3 1
innovation studies Total 253 100
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Among the 167 empirical quantitative studies, 158 articles had clear statements and
illustrations of analytical techniques. These studies were examined to explore the
patterns and trends in the use of analytical techniques (Table IX). Regression was the
most commonly used technique (61 per cent); analytical techniques such as regression
(tobit), regression (probit), regression (logit), regression (binomial) and regression
(logistic) were used. Structural equation modeling/path analysis and cluster analysis
were also widely used techniques. Some studies used very simple calculation techniques
to show quantitative results. Cluster analysis was used in the advanced and recent
periods. In the early period, 2003-2006, empirical quantitative studies with analytical
techniques were limited. Over time, analytical techniques in empirical quantitative
studies did not shift significantly (␹2 ⫽ 22.081, p ⫽ 0.778).

Research techniques Total (%) 2003-2006 (%) 2007-2010 (%) 2011-2014 (%)

SEM/Path analysis 25 (16) 0 (⫺) 7 (18) 18 (16)

Basic calculation 22 (14) 2 (29) 6 (16) 14 (12)
Regression (OLS) 19 (12) 1 (14) 6 (16) 12 (11)
Regression (tobit) 15 (9) 2 (29) 2 (5) 11 (10)
Regression (probit) 12 (8) 1 (14) 2 (5) 9 (8)
Regression (unspecified) 11 (7) 0 (⫺) 2 (5) 9 (8)
Regression (logit) 10 (6) 0 (⫺) 4 (11) 6 (5)
Regression (binomial) 9 (6) 1 (14) 0 (⫺) 8 (7)
Regression (logistic) 8 (5) 0 (⫺) 4 (11) 4 (4)
ANOVA 8 (5) 0 (⫺) 1 (3) 7 (6)
Regression (hierarchical) 6 (4) 0 (⫺) 2 (5) 4 (4)
Cluster analysis 5 (3) 0 (⫺) 2 (5) 3 (3)
Table IX. Regression (poisson) 4 (3) 0 (⫺) 0 (⫺) 4 (4)
Major analytical MANOVA 2 (1) 0 (⫺) 0 (⫺) 2 (2)
techniques in Regression (quantile) 2 (1) 0 (⫺) 0 (⫺) 2 (2)
empirical Total 158 (100) 7 (100) 38 (100) 113 (100)
quantitative studies
over time Notes: ␹2 ⫽ 22.081; df ⫽ 28; p ⫽ 0.778
 Research streams Open
We analyzed the industries explored in open innovation literature. We are aware that innovation
classifying articles according to industry is a daunting task because there are
overlapping industries, and the boundaries between industries is in many cases not
clear. In our assessment, 253 articles of 303 empirical studies had clearly articulated
industries. Table X shows the major industries explored in the literature. Most of the
articles considered multiple industries as the data source (62 per cent). However, 33
information and communication technology (ICT), medical and health and electronics
were the three main industries explored in the open innovation field.
We performed keyword analysis to understand the major research streams in the
open innovation literature. Of the total 411 articles, 226 articles included lists of
keywords. The keyword “open innovation” naturally appeared the most frequently
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(147). Keywords starting with “technology” (or “technological”) appeared 42 times.

Similarly, “research and development” or “R&D” appeared 23 times. The keyword
“innovation” was expected to be highly frequent because of its proximity with “open
innovation”; this was found to be true because it appeared as a keyword 28 times. Other
frequently appearing keywords were “intellectual property”, “business model” and
“open source software” (Figure 4).

Discussion
Implications
This study explored patterns and developments in the open innovation literature.
There was high growth in the number of articles published in the open innovation
field, especially in recent years. However, number of articles published in 2014
seems to have declined. There is still lack of clarity and diffidence with how open
innovation has been applied. Consequently, empirical findings are still fragmented,
and it is challenging to generalize the findings. Scholars use the open innovation
Innovation
Co-creation 30 Intellectual property
Corporate venture capital Business model
25
Innovation networks Open source software
20
Innovation policy SMEs
15

Innovation strategy 10 Entrepreneurship

5
Knowledge management Absoptive capacity
0

Open source Innovation management

Patents Technology transfer

Figure 4.
Crowdsourcing R&D Major research
External technology
streams on open
New product development
commercialisation innovation based on
Strategic alliances User innovation keyword analysis
Collaboration Knowledge management
 SO concept to mean different things or different things are attributed as open
9,1 innovation. Several scholars have pointed out this dilemma (Dahlander and Gann,
2010; van de Vrande et al., 2009).
Even though a large number of journals have contributed to the open innovation
field, several journals contributed the majority of the prominent articles and played a
significant role in the overall shaping of the open innovation literature. Top-tier journals
34 of the broad business discipline have yet to embrace open innovation as an important
research topic. Europe as a geographical location of data sources was most common, and
North America as a data source was very low. The collaboration between authors in the
articles was mostly within an institute or research group. As for geographic context,
scholars from both South America and Oceania have not made any considerable
contribution.
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The share of articles from Asia is growing, but it is still very low and limited in
several countries. Although they possess significant advancement in innovation and
technological development, there are no studies from Canada, Japan and India. The
majority of the articles were written in collaboration with two or three authors, which
indicates a typical collaboration of authorship (Nakata and Huang, 2005). Single
authorship and authorship of more than three authors per article was low. In addition,
the collaboration between distant geographical locations was limited. Some scholars
from the USA and Europe frequently collaborated on the published articles. The
collaboration between authors from multiple countries was also evident in the literature.
However, intraregional collaboration was highly dominant, whereas interregional
collaboration was scanty in the authorship of the published articles. The number of
articles from developing countries was surprisingly low, and the authors of those
articles were from only a few countries.
The studies from the early period were mainly conceptual and managerial in nature.
Moreover, those studies mostly used a few large firms as case studies to illustrate the
open innovation phenomenon. The trend of studies using multiple countries as data
sources has not changed much over time. Most of the studies used “Firm level” as the
unit of analysis. Other levels, such as individual, industry and project, were also well
represented in the literature. However, the number of studies at the national, regional
and international levels was extremely low.
The open innovation literature has evolved in a wide range of research streams. The
analysis of keywords indicates that studies are mostly in the context of high-tech and
large firms. Electronics, ICT, medical and health, etc., were commonly considered
industries in the studies. The empirical evidence is shockingly limited regarding the
extent to which firms have adopted open innovation in their corporate programs. A
large portion of empirical contributory studies are based on the panel data of various
Community Innovation Surveys (CIS) across Europe and beyond. Studies by Laursen
and Salter (2006) on small and medium-sized enterprises in the UK, by Janeiro et al.
(2013) on service SMEs in Portuguese and by Lee et al. (2010) on SMEs in South Korea
are remarkable examples of CIS-based studies.
Although scholars called for shifting the level of analysis from the firm level to other
levels (Christensen, 2006; van de Vrande et al., 2010), our review shows that most articles
in recent years focused on the firm level. Furthermore, open innovation studies in the
context of disciplines such as globalization, HRM and marketing are still sparse.
 Limitations and future research Open
Geographical expansion of studies is imperative to understand the open innovation innovation
concept in various geographical contexts. It is necessary to conduct more studies in
geographical areas such as South Asia, Oceania and South America which has been
explored limitedly. Collaboration between authors of developed and developing
countries might be conducive to diversifying geographic contexts. Innovation is flowing
from one corner of the globe to the other in a short period. Hence, studies at the regional, 35
international and global levels are essential.
Studies on open innovation are limited to several industries, whereas to understand
open innovation extensively, diversification in future studies is crucial. Moreover,
connecting open innovation concept with other disciplines is still in the nascent stage.
The applicability of this concept to new industries, especially those beyond high-tech
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industries, is worthy to consider for future studies.

Even though studies based on CIS data sets help to gain knowledge about open
innovation to a certain extent, these types of data are not collected to probe the open
innovation phenomenon. Hence, studies of high rigor that are based on primary data are
needed for future studies. Surveys were the most common method of data collection. To
analyze data, most of the studies used various types of regression techniques. Analytical
techniques and the data collection protocol need both diversity and rigor. Open
innovation disciplines can be enriched by borrowing research techniques from other
disciples. For example, comparative ethnography, computer simulations, historical or
time series analyses, etc., can be useful to adopt in future studies.
Connecting open innovation with existing theories is necessary to develop new
constructs and measurement scales. Moreover, open innovation can be tied with other
recently emerged concepts such as “reverse innovation” and “frugal innovation”
(Zedtwitz et al., 2015), which may help to understand innovation primarily in the context
of developing countries and subsequently to build bridges between developed and
developing countries in terms of innovation.
Overall, this review shows that a significant progress has been made regarding
research topics, analytical rigor, authorship, theory and method. As more studies on
open innovation are carried out, this discipline will be better positioned to emerge as
influential and well-established. This study is an effort to usher scholars in that
direction.

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Corresponding author
Mokter Hossain can be contacted at: mokter.hossain@aalto.fi

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