Time orientation and sequential coherence as novel determinants of open innovation performance

Abstract

Openness has become a strategy for organizations (Chesbrough, 2017) and a trend in innovation management (Lopez & Carvalho, 2018). It has attracted wide academic attention (Kim et al, 2015). Open innovation (OI) encourages organizations to collaborate with external organizations in harnessing new knowledge to accelerate internal innovations and also to partner with external organizations to early commercialize innovations (Chesbrough, 2003). Through a pilot study done in 2017 using 160 managers of 114 business organizations, we found that OI is popular among organizations in Sri Lanka.

Despite its popularity as a strategy to promote innovations in organizations, there is criticism against open innovation claiming that it does not always increase innovation performance (Lee & Shin, 2017; Yapa, et al., 2018). Cheng & Shiu (2015) emphasize that the relationship between OI and innovation performance is not direct and increased OI may reduce innovation performance (Lauritzen & Karafyllia, 2019; Bengtsson, et al, 2015). Scholars regularly point out the necessity to identify novel determinants to understand performance differences in open innovation initiatives. Having conducted two qualitative inquiries the authors identified two novel variables namely time orientation and sequential coherence that can explain differences in innovation performance of open innovation initiatives. We selected the local software industry that records varying levels of innovation performance in open innovation initiatives for an empirical study as it constitutes a fertile ground.