« More Open Than Open Innovation ? Rethinking The Concept Of Openness In Innovation Studies »

This paper re-examines the concept of open innovation developed in organization sciences (Chesbrough, 2003a). The authors claim that this paradigm, which insists on the distributive nature of innovation among a wide range of heterogeneous actors, does not put enough emphasis on the condition of access to knowledge. Yet, the open dimension of knowledge is a very important feature to sustain a collective mode of innovation. They propose therefore a stronger definition of open innovation, which is based on three constitutive characteristics: Firms voluntarily release knowledge; Knowledge is open, i.e. is available to all interested parties without discrimination and dynamic interactions take place among the stakeholders to enrich the open knowledge base.