The role of digital technologies

in open innovation processes: an

exploratory multiple case study
analysis
Andrea Urbinati , Davide Chiaroni,
Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini
Politecnico Di Milano, School of Business, Via R. Lambruschini, 4/b, 20156 Milan, Italy.
[email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected];
[email protected]

Digital transformation has undoubtedly become a key enabler of innovation as evidenced

by the numerous firms that use digital technologies to manage their innovation proc-
esses. This issue is even more relevant today when innovation processes have become
more open and require greater resources in the different implementation phases to cap-
ture and transfer knowledge within and outside the firm’s boundaries. This implies
additional challenges in managing the increasing amount of knowledge and information
flows. Accordingly, digital technologies can be used and implemented to manage open
innovation processes through easier access and sharing the knowledge created and trans-
ferred. Nevertheless, literature in these fields does not provide a structured view of how
and why digital technologies are used to manage innovation processes in an open per-
spective. This paper aims to bridge this gap by adopting the theoretical lenses of change
management to identify the managerial actions at organizational and process level that
companies perform to implement digital technologies in their open innovation processes.
Accordingly, the paper investigates how and why these managerial actions required for
and enabled by digital technologies help firms to develop and nurture open innovation.
From an empirical point of view, the exploratory multiple case study analyzes nine firms
operating in different industries and varying in size, market share, and organizational
structure.

1. Introduction an open perspective (Chiaroni et al., 2011; Bianchi

et al., 2016; Sikimic et al., 2016).

I nnovation scholars and practitioners have dis-

cussed at length the organizational and process lev-
ers that innovation managers can leverage to improve
However, to our knowledge, no studies deepen the
organizational and process levers ensuing from and
enabling the use and implementation of digital tech-
the performance of innovation processes conducted in nologies to manage open innovation processes. This

136 C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

despite the increasing amount of knowledge and of companies (Section 2.1.). Therefore, we explain
information flows exchanged within and outside the the selection of our sample of digital technologies
firm’s boundaries in open innovation processes (Section 2.2.) and their role from a practitioner per-
(Chesbrough, 2004, 2006; Manyika et al., 2011; Yoo spective (Section 2.3.). In Section 2.4., we present the
et al., 2012) that call for using and implementing new main emerging results on open innovation, especially
technologies for their internalization, management, in the light of the topic under investigation. We con-
processing, and external transfer. Accordingly, digital clude this section by developing a theoretical frame-
technologies can allow the management of open inno- work based on existing literature on digital
vation processes through easier access, sharing, and technologies in innovation processes and open inno-
using the knowledge and information flows created vation (Section 2.5.). Section 3 describes the rationale
and transferred (Chen et al., 2012). and methodology used for the empirical analysis.
Although some studies provide anecdotal evidence Section 4 reports the results and the discussion of our
of the role of digital technologies in open innovation exploratory multiple case study analysis. Finally, Sec-
(Dodgson et al., 2006; Natalicchio et al., 2014), this tion 5 draws the conclusions, summarizing the main
management issue remains unexplored and the gap is implications of our study and suggesting future theo-
even more relevant as the growing proliferation of digi- retical and empirical research avenues.
tal technologies find applicability in innovation proc-
esses. Therefore, further theoretical and empirical
research that provides a structured view of their use and 2. State-of-the-art
implementation in the innovation process (Agostini
et al., 2017) and particularly in open innovation proc- 2.1. Digital technologies in the innovation
esses (Del Vecchio et al., 2016) is still required. process: a theoretical perspective
Accordingly, understanding how digital technolo-
gies help firms to manage open innovation processes The huge proliferation, use and implementation of dig-
implies the establishment of a framework for innova- ital technologies in firms’ innovation processes has
tion processes in an open perspective. called scholars operating in the fields of management
Starting from these premises and leveraging on the and innovation to emphasize the need to develop a
research streams on digital technologies and open theory of digital technology management (Fichman
innovation, the paper argues that the use and imple- et al., 2014; Nambisan et al., 2017). The time for new
mentation of digital technologies in open innovation theorizing about digital technologies invites scholars to
processes requires firms to perform managerial deepen the analyses on the use and implementation of
actions at organizational and process level. digital technologies to nurture the innovation activity
This paper employs the theoretical lenses of change of companies (Yoo et al., 2012). This sound theoretical
management and the exploratory multiple case study effort around how digital technologies facilitates inno-
analyzes nine companies operating in different indus- vation processes has resulted, on one hand, in manifold
tries (i.e., energy, automotive, and consultancy) and attempts to provide conceptual strategic and innovation
varying in size, market share, and organizational frameworks (Yoo, 2010; Yoo et al., 2010). On the other
structure. Data from these firms were collected hand, scholars have advanced several research direc-
through personal interviews with a set of key respond- tions for a more fine-grained theoretical understanding
ents and triangulated with secondary sources of infor- of digital technologies in relation to the development
mation. The outcome of this study is therefore a of digital business strategies (Woodard et al., 2012),
framework that provides a map of the managerial the recombination of existing capabilities with IT-
actions at organizational and process level that com- based resources to develop digital capabilities (Lobo
panies perform through digital technologies to man- and White, 2017), and the creation and capture of value
age open innovation processes. through digital technologies (Pigni et al., 2016).
In doing so, the paper contributes to the research
stream discussing the potential, the applications and
2.2. Selecting a reliable sample of digital
managerial implications of digital technologies in firms’
technologies
innovation processes. The paper also contributes to
open innovation stream studying the organizational and Starting from the above premises, and due to the high
process levers that management can adopt to foster and number of contributions that is proliferating in this
nurture open innovation through digital technologies. field of study, we were asked to cluster and summa-
The paper is structured as follows. In Section 2, we rize the key themes related to the main digital technol-
highlight the relevance from a theoretical perspective ogies used by companies to nurture their innovation
to study digital technologies in the innovation process activity. Accordingly, we conducted a systematic

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

V R&D Management 50, 1, 2020 137
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Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

research in Web of Science (WoS) and searched in diagnosis in the biomedical and healthcare industry to
the titles and abstracts of the main management and support the electronic communication of health
innovation journals the combination of key words, records and access to a wider scientific community.
such as digit*, manag*, innovat*, and technolog*.
Accordingly, we were able to understand the main
key themes on the digital transformation of businesses 2.3.2. IoT
emerging from the extant research, which resulted in Some scholars debate the use and implementation of
the use and implementation of Big Data, Internet of the IoT to support the connection of devices,
Things (IoT), Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) machines, and things with the aim to support compa-
Systems, Systems of Rapid Prototyping (SoRP), Idea nies in the dynamic creation, analysis, and communi-
and Knowledge Management (IKM) Systems, and cation of exchanged data (Weber, 2010; Atzori et al.,
Cloud Computing. Although we are aware of the 2011; Miorandi et al., 2012; Gubbi et al., 2013). The
many emerging and promising digital technologies rising number of interconnected devices, machines,
and things is representing the base for the future IoT
today available to nurture the innovation activity of
networks, underlying the innovation dynamics and
companies, such as augmented and virtual reality,
the technological evolution of IoT in the innovation
artificial intelligence, and cyber-physical systems
management field (Ardito et al., 2017). In addition,
(F€uller and Matzler, 2007; O’Leary, 2013; Lee et al.,
Caputo et al. (2016) underline the relevance of IoT to
2015), we decided to restrict our analysis to the above
support the innovation of processes in manufacturing
identified technologies.
companies. In particular, the IoT technology embeds
However, to corroborate the sample of the main dig-
all the microelectromechanical systems used in the
ital technologies obtained from the systematic
operations and production processes, such as ‘acceler-
research, we involved three digital technology experts
ometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers, which are a
(one professor and two senior consultants) working at
good example of process innovations’ (p. 389), to
the Digital Innovation Observatory of Politecnico Di
increase the productivity and reduce producing costs.
Milano. The same experts were later involved for
Moreover, IoT can be used to support the downstream
establishing a suitable sample of companies for our
phases of the innovation process, such as the commer-
research according to the sampled digital technologies.
cialization, thanks to the processing of real-time infor-
mation flows along the lifecycle of products, which
2.3. The sampled digital technologies in provides strong data support in terms of marketing
the innovation process: a practitioner and sales (Caputo et al., 2016).
perspective
The theoretical implications of digital technologies in 2.3.3. IKM systems
innovation processes laid beside practical implica- Several research streams point to the use of IKM sys-
tions for managers with role of responsibility in the tems to integrate and apply specialized knowledge of
innovation units of their companies. Accordingly, we organizational members in the idea generation phase
want to provide some recent contributions dealing to create and sustain the upstream competitive advant-
with the use and application of our sampled digital age of firms through innovation (Alavi and Leidner,
technologies, underlying their attributes to nurture the 1999; Chinneck and Bolton, 2013). Moreover,
innovation activity for companies operating in differ- Spiegler (2000) highlights that IKM systems can be
ent contexts. used to define how to transform (from the idea genera-
tion phase) data-to-information, information-to-
knowledge and their reverse order, namely, turning
2.3.1. Big data data (raw material) into information (finished goods)
O’Donovan et al. (2015) underline the use of Big and then into knowledge (actionable finished goods)
Data to generate and develop technologies in the inno- applied to innovation purposes (Bansemir and Neyer,
vation processes in the manufacturing industry 2009; Westerski et al., 2010).
through improvements in operational efficiency.
Other studies discuss the use of Big Data in the health-
care industry (e.g., Zillner et al., 2014; Brunswicker 2.3.4. Cloud computing
et al., 2015; Hilbert, 2016), underlining the improve- Some scientific contributions highlight Cloud Com-
ments in care quality thanks to the acquisition and puting (Marston et al., 2011; Sultan, 2011; Lian et al.,
elaboration of information flows on customer behav- 2014) as a new online service allowing companies to
iors in real time. In addition, Toga and Dinov (2015) reduce costs, increase operational advantages and
point out the use of Big Data for research and allow more flexible resource management in several

138 R&D Management 50, 1, 2020 C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

phases of the innovation process where this technology and the internal organization of innovation units, such
is applied (Ercan, 2010; Lin and Chen, 2012). In par- as R&D, impact firm performance (West and Bogers,
ticular, Wu et al. (2013) underline the use of Cloud 2014; West et al., 2014; Bianchi et al., 2016); (ii) the
Computing to support decision-making processes of interaction between open innovation strategies and
companies, by satisfying the information-processing appropriability (West et al., 2014); (iii) the modes of
requirements along the phases of their innovation acquiring technological knowledge from external
processes. In addition, Boss et al. (2007) have high- sources or transferring technological knowledge from
lighted how companies can use Cloud Computing to internal sources, also known as inbound (or outside-
quickly develop, test and make their innovations avail- in) or outbound (or inside-out) open innovation activ-
able to the user community, because it enables faster ities (Chesbrough and Crowther, 2006; Spithoven
deployment cycles of new products and services. et al., 2010; Bianchi et al., 2011); (iv) the ability of
firms to recognize, assimilate, and apply within their
boundaries external knowledge sources and technolo-
2.3.5. PLM systems gies, also known as absorptive capacity (Cohen and
PLM systems allow companies to integrate all the Levinthal, 1990; Lichtenthaler and Lichtenthaler,
information on the product lifecycle with every organ- 2009, 2010), or the ability to identify technology
izational level, both managerial and technical, as well transfer opportunities and facilitate its implementa-
as with customers, suppliers, developers, and manu- tion for external adopters, also known as desorptive
facturers (Sudarsan et al., 2005; Ming et al., 2008). capacity (Lichtenthaler and Lichtenthaler, 2010).
Several contributions point out their use to support the In the light of the topic under investigation, we
management of a portfolio of products, processes, and found a very few contributions that tried to study
services from the initial concept through design, engi- some of the above open innovation streams in relation
neering, launch, production, and use to final disposal to the digital technologies concept. For example,
(Ming et al., 2008) and by maintaining their integrity Christensen et al. (2005) analyze how different open
(Kiritsis et al., 2003; Kiritsis, 2011). innovation strategies can be pursued as a company
shift to the adoption of a consolidated technology to a
digital technology in dynamic contexts. Moreover,
2.3.6. SoRP Roberts et al. (2012) study the role of absorptive
SoRP (such as 3D printing technology) are another capacity in the information system research to facili-
tool identified in the innovation management field to tate the assimilation of complex IT innovation and the
accelerate and reconfigure innovative production synergies between absorptive capacity and IT capabil-
processes (e.g., Rayna and Striukova, 2016). In partic- ities to improve the firm’s performance. In addition,
ular, this technology finds its main application in pro- some recent contributions have highlighted the
totype generation, test design, refining, and emerging role of market for ideas, which operates as
commercializing the final product (Sambu et al., virtual marketplace at the intersection between digital
2002; Rupp et al., 2003; Dimitrov et al., 2007). Firms technologies and open innovation to connect knowl-
can benefit from SoRP in the product development edge owners and seekers for the creation of new solu-
phase through creating competitive solutions in terms tions (Natalicchio et al., 2014).
of cost and speed, modifying and personalizing prod- Although rich in terms of managerial and practical
ucts, simultaneously developing several versions of implications, and in the light of the few attempts to
the same product, and speeding up the product link each open innovation stream with digital technol-
offering. ogies concept, from the literature emerges the lack of
specific attention to the applications, methods of use,
2.4. Open innovation (and digital and benefits characterizing digital technologies in
technologies) innovation processes conducted in an open perspec-
tive. Above all, the main contribution addressing this
Open innovation is nowadays recognized as ‘the dis- aspect is that of Dodgson et al. (2006). The authors,
tributed innovation process based on purposively through the Procter and Gamble ‘Connect and
managed knowledge flows across organizational Develop’ program, highlight for the first time how a
boundaries, using pecuniary and non-pecuniary mech- suite of new technologies for data mining, simulation,
anisms in line with the organization’s business model’ prototyping, and visual representation helped the
(Chesbrough and Bogers, 2014; p. 12). company support the management of its open innova-
Literature on open innovation has proliferated in tion process.
recent years and the main scientific contributions However, this literature provides only partial theo-
focused on several streams: (i) how open innovation retical and practical implications, with several

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V R&D Management 50, 1, 2020 139
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Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

that coherently with several contributions (Ches-

brough, 2003; Van de Vrande et al., 2006; Lazzarotti
and Manzini, 2009; Spithoven et al., 2010; Bianchi
Figure 1. Gap in existing literature.
et al., 2016) interacts in each phase of the innovation
process to access external knowledge sources, such as
technology and know-how, i.e., the inbound (or out-
questions remaining open. Accordingly, as high-
side-in) open innovation activity.
lighted in the Introduction section, the role of digital
We adopt the theoretical lenses of change manage-
technologies in the open innovation process still calls
ment applied extensively in the innovation manage-
for further theoretical and empirical research (Del
ment literature to explain the managerial actions that
Vecchio et al., 2016). This gap is even more relevant
companies adopt to change traditional organizational
as the growing proliferation of digital technologies
practices (Goodman and Dean, 1982; Tidd et al.,
find applicability in innovation processes of compa-
1997; Kotter, 2007).
nies (Agostini et al., 2017). In this respect, under-
In particular, we leverage on change management
standing how the aforementioned sample of digital
studies to understand the managerial actions that com-
technologies supports firms to manage open innova-
panies have to perform at organizational and process
tion processes requires a framework for innovation
level (Davenport, 1993; Todnem By, 2005) to imple-
processes in an open perspective.
ment with success digital technologies in their innova-
tion process, especially in a context of open
2.5. Research question and theoretical innovation (Chiaroni et al., 2011).
framework
Leveraging on the research streams on digital technol-
ogies and open innovation, the aim of this paper is to
3. Methodology and empirical analysis
bridge the gap in existing literature (Figure 1) and
answer the following research question: Which mana-
3.1. Methodology
gerial actions at organizational and process level do The paper uses an exploratory multiple case study
companies perform to implement with success digital analysis of nine firms operating in different industries
technologies in their open innovation processes? (i.e., energy, automotive, and consultancy) and vary-
To address this research question, we propose the ing in size, market share and organizational structure.
theoretical framework in Figure 2, which will be used According to Yin (2003), multiple case study analysis
as guide for the following empirical analysis. Our allows answering ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions and is
framework conceives our sampled digital technolo- particularly appropriate for cross-case comparisons
gies as the independent variables applied in the open (Chiesa et al., 2007).
innovation process to increase the firms’ performance. The same digital technology experts that corrobo-
Therefore, the open innovation process represents the rated the sample of digital technologies ensuing from
area of investigation where independent and depend- our review process provided us a set of specific Italian
ent (firms’ performance) variables are linked journals dealing with the topic of digital technologies
each other. In particular, our area of investigation or digitalization in firm innovation processes. The
is conceived as a three-step process, i.e., idea most helpful and frequently referenced sources
generation, product or service development, and com- include TechWeekEurope, Data Manager Online,
mercialization. In addition, our innovation process ZeroUno, ICT Professional, Digital4Executive,
examines one relevant dimension of open innovation TradeManager.it, Datavalue, IctBusiness.it, and

Figure 2. The Theoretical Framework.

140 R&D Management 50, 1, 2020 C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

Hitech Magazine. We conducted a systematic analysis 3.2. Empirical analysis

of the articles published last year searching for key-
We used company websites, reports, and project doc-
words such as ‘digital technology’, ‘digital innova-
umentation to provide some preliminary key data on
tion’, ‘digitalization’, ‘ICT’, ‘open innovation’, and
our sample of firms. In particular, for each firm, we
‘innovation process’. We performed a content analy-
highlight in Table 1 a brief profile description, the
sis (Weber, 1990) to cluster the information contained
turnover, their inbound open innovation activity, the
in these documents. We assembled over 150 articles
R&D expenses, the number of employees, the sector
listing around 50 companies using digital technolo-
of activity, the digital technologies adopted and in
gies to manage their open innovation process.
which phase. Worth noting is that in some cases, the
Thereafter, we shared our analysis with our panel
firms in our sample use more than one digital technol-
of digital experts and triangulated all the information
ogy to manage their open innovation process.
collected. This allowed identifying around 20 compa-
Although we interviewed the innovation managers
nies using such digital technologies to manage their
of the Italian branches of each sampled firm, given
open innovation process. We contacted them via
that data on turnover and R&D expenses are provided
email and phone, and engaged nine companies in our
as aggregates in the 2015 consolidated financial state-
study (see Table A1 in the Appendix for the list of
ments, key data on our sample of firms are provided at
companies and the key respondents involved).
the global level.
Simultaneously, we began assembling an initial
We believe that this sample of companies adequately
set of questions through which we collect and ana-
fits with the theoretical setting and, therefore, it is suita-
lyze information based on the use and implementa-
ble to respond to the research question proposed in the
tion of digital technologies in our sample of firms. State-of-the-art section as companies are:
The analysis of literature on digital technologies and
open innovation allowed us to formulate a set of spe- 1. Heterogeneous from the point of view of
cific questions for our respondents to answer the dimension, R&D expenses, number of employ-
research question outlined in Section 2. To assemble ees, and sector of activity, to explain differen-
the final interview protocol, we additionally inte- ces on how they organize the internal units for
grated and adapted the interview template of innovation activities and on how the contextual
Dodgson et al. (2006) mostly in the light of the theo- factors could impact firms’ performance;
retical lenses of change management we leveraged 2. Homogeneous from the point of view of the
on in this paper. Our final interview protocol (pro- digital technologies adopted, to highlight simi-
vided in the Appendix, see Table A2) was initially larities and differences on their potential of
sent via e-mail to the top managers in charge of application in the open innovation activity;
innovation in our sample of firms. In a second phase, 3. Homogeneous from the point of view of how
we conducted personal, direct interviews with the they conduct and organize the open innovation
top managers through phone calls and/or face-to- activity.
face meetings. We interviewed a panel of 12 innova-
tion managers at least twice to obtain complete
responses to all our questions. Overall, each inter- 4. Results and discussions
view lasted on average an hour and half for over
36 hours of interviews. Finally, we triangulated all Our multiple case study analysis shows that digital
the information gathered from the key respondents technologies require firms to perform managerial
with secondary sources of information, such as changes at organizational and process level to support
reports of companies or the same referenced sources their open innovation process. At organizational level,
used for identifying the companies, to avoid post the adoption of digital technologies has required com-
hoc rationalizations (Yin, 2003). panies to reorganize the Resource & Development
In doing so, for each case study, we first analyzed (R&D) units and activities, focusing on (i) technolo-
the role of each digital technology adopted in the open gies’ features standardization, (ii) budget formalization
innovation process. Thereafter, to identify the com- for digital investments, and (iii) development of new
mon patterns of actions and differences among each and formalized procedures for innovation activities
case study, a cross-case comparison was undertaken. (due to digital technologies). At process level, compa-
We continuously compared the results of the empiri- nies perform ex-ante and in a particular timeframe
cal evidence with the information ensuing from the deliberate actions to adopt digital technologies. In addi-
theoretical setting to refine, enrich, and modify the tion, companies perform ex-post new actions triggered
theoretical framework. by the digital technologies as effect of their previous

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

V R&D Management 50, 1, 2020 141
 Table 1. Preliminary key data on our sample of firms

142
Brief profile Turnover Inbound (or outside-in) R&D Number of Sector of Digital Technology Phase of the innovation
open innovation activity expenses employees activity process

Company A
Company A is an Ameri- $6 bn Company A particularly lev- $65–75 mln 29,000 Automotive Product Lifecycle  Idea generation
can multinational that erages on the outside-in Management  Product or service
supplies drivetrain, seal- activity, mainly through (PLM) development
ing and thermal- M&A operations and in-  Commercialization
management technolo- licensing with the aim of
gies. It is formed of quickly internalizing new

R&D Management 50, 1, 2020

four business units, i.e., technologies to support its
(i) light vehicles, (ii) innovation engineering
commercial vehicles, processes. The company
(iii) off highway, (iv) also supports its innova-
power technologies tion engineering processes
group. The business through the direct involve-
unit of Off Highway ment of customers who
Products, LLC, manu- provide their feedbacks on
factures auto parts for products and components.
off road vehicles. It
produces transmissions
and controls, axles,
drive shafts, tire infla-
tion systems and drive-
train systems. The Off
Highway Products busi-
ness unit supplies the

V
agriculture, construc-
Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

tion, forestry, mining,

material handling, out-
door power equipment
and leisure/utility vehi-
cle industries.
Company B
Company B is a publisher e1 bn Company B supports its e0.5–2 mln 3,261 Publishing Big Data  Idea generation
and printer in Italy. The innovation process by lev- and Retail  Commercialization
company’s publications eraging on outside-in Internet of Things  Idea generation
include books, maga- activities, such as M&A (IoT)  Commercialization
zines, newspapers, operations with small Ital- Cloud Computing  Idea generation
advertising, business ian publishers and by  Commercialization
information, graphics,

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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 V
Table 1. (Continued)
Brief profile Turnover Inbound (or outside-in) R&D Number of Sector of Digital Technology Phase of the innovation
open innovation activity expenses employees activity process
direct marketing and exploiting its network of
on-line information 600 bookstores.
services. Company B
also retails books
through a large network
of bookstores and gen-
erates most of its busi-
ness in Italy.
Company C
The Italian Company C e300 mln Company C innovates e18–23 mln 3,300 Machinery Big Data  Idea generation

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

designs, manufactures, mostly through involving  Product or service
supplies and installs customers in the phases of development
woodworking and panel idea generation and devel-  Commercialization
processing equipment. opment of its machineries. IoT  Product or service
The company offers development
beam saws, wide belt  Commercialization
sanders, finishing sys-
tems, and sizing edge
banders. Company C
markets its products
worldwide.
Company D
Company D provides e14 bn Company D is growing e190–250 mln 80,550 Consultancy Big Data  Idea generation
information technology thanks to its strong  Product or service
consulting and system outside-in activity, mostly development
development services. concerning the acquisition  Commercialization
Its services include IT of several overseas com- System of Rapid  Product or service
consultancy services on panies that provide new Prototyping development
information technology business approaches and (SoRP)
system strategies and frameworks, supporting
organization, technolog- idea generation and crea-
ical evolution, models tivity. The outside-in
of IT governance, infor- activity also concerns the
mation technology sys- direct involvement of cus-
tems architecture and tomers along the develop-
program management; ment phases of projects to

R&D Management 50, 1, 2020

design, creation, and acquire constant inputs on
operating support their particular needs.
The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

143
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 Table 1. (Continued)

144
Brief profile Turnover Inbound (or outside-in) R&D Number of Sector of Digital Technology Phase of the innovation
open innovation activity expenses employees activity process
services based on the
integration and custom-
ization of various tech-
nologies; digital
interaction advanced
services; information
technology applications
and infrastructures man-

R&D Management 50, 1, 2020

agement; IT security
services. Company D
serves various indus-
tries, including telecom-
munications, banking
and financial services,
insurance, services and
government, manufac-
turing and distribution,
publishing and media
and security.
Company E
Company E is a highly $0.55 bn Company E exploits outside- e7–10 mln 2,811 Healthcare Big Data  Commercialization
specialized teaching and in activity, leveraging on Cloud Computing  Commercialization
research hospital. the creation of a network
Accredited by the of professionals that com-

V
National Health Serv- bines clinics and public
Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

ice, Company E com- institutions, such as

bines specialized research centers and uni-
centers for the treat- versities; simultaneously,
ment of cancer, cardio- the network provides
vascular diseases, knowledge through
neurological and ortho- research and training pro-
pedic disorders, as well grams as well as public
as an Ophthalmology events.
Centre and a Fertility
Centre. This Italian pri-
vate hospital is also
equipped with Emer-
gency and Radiotherapy

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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 V
Table 1. (Continued)
Brief profile Turnover Inbound (or outside-in) R&D Number of Sector of Digital Technology Phase of the innovation
open innovation activity expenses employees activity process
departments. The Italian
Ministry of Health
granted Company E the
status ‘Research Hospi-
tal’ (IRCCS) with a
focus on diseases of the
immune system, rang-
ing from cancer to
rheumatoid arthritis.
Company E is one of
the most technologi-

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

cally advanced private
hospitals in Europe.
Company F
Company F is a leading $31 bn Company F focuses on max- $3–5 bn 375,000 Consultancy Big Data  Product or service
global professional imizing the differentiation development
services company pro- and competitiveness of its  Commercialization
viding a broad range of innovative offering by Idea and Knowl-  Idea generation
services and solutions continuing to make signifi- edge Manage-
in strategy, consulting, cant investments in the ment (IKM)
digital, technology and areas of training, acquisi-
operations. It helps tions, emerging technolo-
organizations to maxi- gies, offerings and assets.
mize their performance
and achieve their
vision. Company F
develops and imple-
ments technology solu-
tions to improve their
clients’ productivity and
efficiency and run parts
of their operations on
their behalf. Ultimately,
Company F enables cli-
ents to become high-
performance businesses
and public authorities.

R&D Management 50, 1, 2020

The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

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 Table 1. (Continued)

146
Brief profile Turnover Inbound (or outside-in) R&D Number of Sector of Digital Technology Phase of the innovation
open innovation activity expenses employees activity process

Company G
Founded in 1979 as a con- e16 mln Company G particularly e1–2 mln Over 450 Education IoT  Idea generation
sortium of numerous innovates by leveraging on  Product or service
Italian institutions and outside-in activity with a development
several leading public network of technical  Commercialization
and private industrial experts on digital plat-
groups, today Company forms dedicated to the

R&D Management 50, 1, 2020

G is a non-for-profit provision of online courses
consortium limited for executives and practi-
company. Company G tioners. The continuous
is involved in all the feedback from students is
many aspects surround- also a relevant element of
ing research and educa- the inbound open innova-
tion in the fields of tion activity as it allows
management, economics relevant improvements on
and industrial the existing platforms.
engineering.
Company H
The conglomerate Com- e75.6 bn Company H mostly grew e3.5–5.5 bn 348,000 Manufacturing, PLM  Idea generation
pany H is a German thanks to outside-in activ- Healthcare,  Product or service
company headquartered ity by acquiring small- Energy development
in Berlin and Munich medium companies, pro-  Commercialization
and the largest engi- viders of specific techno-
neering company in logical knowledge. Today,

V
Europe with branch Company H takes advant-
Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

offices abroad. Com- age from its network of

pany H is a global customers, who are
powerhouse focusing on directly involved in the
the areas of electrifica- development phases of
tion, automation and projects and their continu-
digitalization. One of ous exchange of informa-
the world’s largest pro- tion allows ideas to be
ducers of energy- quickly developed.
efficient, resource-sav-
ing technologies, Com-
pany H is a leading
supplier of systems for
power generation and

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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 V
Table 1. (Continued)
Brief profile Turnover Inbound (or outside-in) R&D Number of Sector of Digital Technology Phase of the innovation
open innovation activity expenses employees activity process
transmission as well as
medical diagnosis. In
infrastructure and indus-
try solutions, the com-
pany plays a pioneering
role.
Company I
Company L is a French e98.5 bn Company L exploits outside- e300–400 157,000 Insurance Big Data  Commercialization
multinational insurance in activity mainly through mln IKM  Idea generation
firm headquartered in the M&A operations and Cloud Computing  Commercialization

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

8th arrondissement in Paris through involving custom-
involved in global insur- ers in the development
ance, investment manage- phases of projects to
ment and other financial acquire constant inputs on
services. Company L oper- their particular needs.
ates primarily in Western
Europe, North America,
the Asia Pacific region,
and the Middle East, with
a presence also in Africa.
Company L is a conglom-
erate of independently run
businesses operating
according to the laws and
regulations of many differ-
ent countries. The com-
pany is a component of
the Euro Stoxx 50 stock
market index.

R&D Management 50, 1, 2020

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Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

Figure 3. Emerging findings mapped onto the dimensions of our theoretical framework – Enabling capabilities along the phases of
the innovation process.

adoption. We call these two categories of managerial open innovation activity. These managerial actions
actions as (i) enabled and (ii) enabling capabilities. allow companies to implement with success digital
These capabilities sometimes change from technology technologies to nurture open innovation although they
to technology and from phase to phase in the open require a change at organizational level and on the way
innovation process, allowing firms to manage differ- with which companies manage their innovation pro-
ently the open innovation process and the inbound cess. We highlight these in the following discussion

Figure 4. Emerging findings mapped onto the dimensions of our theoretical framework – Enabled capabilities along the phases of
the innovation process.

148 R&D Management 50, 1, 2020 C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

and in Figures 3 and 4, which show the emerging not a dedicated budget for R&D activities. The for-
exploratory findings collected and mapped onto the malization of budget for R&D activities tries to medi-
dimensions of the theoretical framework. ate the trade-off between the result-oriented approach
and the R&D purposes.
In the case of Company C, digital technologies
4.1. Managerial actions at organizational
have enabled the creation of an IoT department for
level
the development of a digital infrastructure that col-
4.1.1. Reorganization of the R&D units and lects all the amount of data generated from the inter-
activities action of the machineries produced by the Company
Several managerial changes are required to R&D units and that maintains a solid connection between them.
to manage the transition toward new organizational As argued by the Chief Technology Officer, ‘The new
paradigms (Goodman and Dean, 1982; Kotter, 2007). IoT unit gave also us the possibility to reason on the
In particular, the reorganization of R&D unit is histori- development of new innovation projects concerning
cally recognized as one of the main innovation man- the big themes of Big Data and Cloud Computing.
agement paradigms for companies that dynamically Once we will test the capability of our digital infra-
implement open innovation (Chiaroni et al., 2011). In structure to collect and maintain data exchanged by
a context of digital transformation of companies’ inno- our machineries, we will start within this unit with a
vation activities, this issue appears to be even more set of innovation projects related to the intelligent
interesting and important for innovation scholars and analysis and storage of these data’.
practitioners. In particular, our empirical analysis In Company D, the implementation of digital tech-
shows how R&D units of the sampled companies have nologies has required reorganizing the R&D unit in
been reorganized in the light of the adoption of digital the most focused ‘Digital Entity’ to jump-in the digi-
technologies in their open innovation processes. tal transformation process of the Company, and the
As argued by the Italian branch Lead Engineer of new Head of Digital Entity (of the Italian branch) was
Company A, ‘Our Company has historically grown called to create a new methodological approach for
through acquisitions. Each acquisition has entailed innovation activities. In particular, he argued, ‘Within
the entrance of new technologies with specific fea- this digital entity several people with very different
tures for specific innovation tasks. Our R&D unit was skills (such as consultants), business experts (with
asked to standardize and streamline all the technolo- vertical expertise), digital technology specialists, and
gies’ features to favour the support to innovation at people who have experience as makers, need to work
company level and not only for dedicated purposes’. together. These people have to contaminate each other
This was particularly important for Company A’s their knowledge so that innovation is not necessarily
R&D activity, which is involved in designing derived by the technology expert, but also by a busi-
mechanical parts used to transfer the motorcycle from ness expert rather than by a maker’.
the engine to the wheels for all types of vehicles The case of Company E is particularly interesting.
treated by its different divisions. Accordingly, ‘Stand- In the last years, the share of investments in digital
ardization of technologies’ features happened through technologies and IT of private hospitals has been con-
the development of a project based on the implemen- siderably higher than in the past. As argued by the
tation of a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) sys- Operations Manager, ‘The main projects we are
tem able to provide a unique technological framework developing through digital technologies relate to elec-
for innovation engineering processes’. tronic medical records, which allow monitoring the
This was not the same for Company B, where all patient’s diagnostic-therapeutic pathway. We were
dedicated digital experiences failed in the past. As required to reorganize our innovation department in a
argued by the Chief Information Officer, ‘These fail- dedicated task force, characterized by a group of 20–
ures are mostly linked to the diversity of the internal 25 people including doctors and nurses. The task force
business of Company B. It is difficult for our Com- was required to match the existing information system
pany to have an R&D unit or a digital officer who functionalities with the new digital tools in order to
deals with digital innovation initiatives of all busi- accelerate the elaboration of information on patients
nesses in a transversal way; it often happens that we instead of using traditional clinical records on paper.
focus only on some particular cases, and the others If the manual process allowed elaborating clinical
move independently to be developed. Another com- records in 3–4 weeks, the new digital process has
plementary limit is the result-oriented approach of our allowed elaborating clinical records in approximately
Company, which contrasts the final purpose of tradi- 4 working days from the patient’s discharge. Our goal
tional R&D activities’. However, before the introduc- in the next few years will be to deliver about 80–85%
tion of digital technologies in Company B, there was of complete diagnosis the following day. The

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

introduction of these digital applications within the The ‘Digital Factory’ division of Company H was
hospital has brought significant changes’. born in 2014 with the aim to manage the digitalization
The use of digital technologies in Company F is of Company’s industrial processes and provide new
strictly related to the knowledge management. In par- digitally developed products. In particular, this unit
ticular, the use of Big Data supports the IKM system bases on a comprehensive portfolio of integrated
of Company F. Although knowledge management is a hardware, software, and digital technology-based
consolidate practice in Company F since its founding services to enhance the flexibility and efficiency of
in 2001, the increasing number of customers and manufacturing processes and reducing the time to
Company’s repositories, has required the use and market of products. As argued by the Italian branch
implementation of new emerging technologies to elab- Director Business Development Mid-Market,
orate customers’ and internal information in order to ‘Through the Digital Factory (and coherently with its
create new solutions. In particular, to use and imple- goals), we started to give great importance to the tech-
ment the IKM system (and Big Data), Company F had nology of Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) sys-
to reorganize its R&D unit in the ‘Innovation series’, a tem. Indeed, we believe that in order to understand if
new configuration of innovation unit that tracks new our customers perceive the new products we offer as
products and services (digitally enabled) on the market good, it is crucial to keep the grip on the management
and develops new digital service solutions for custom- of the entire product life cycle, from its conception to
ers. As argued by the two interviewed managers of the development and commercialization, and a PLM
Italian branch (the Digital Strategy Senior Manager solution clearly fits this objective’. As in the case of
and a Consultant Analyst), ‘The “Innovation series” Company A, the Digital Factory was called to develop
aims to look at all the digital solutions developed on a project based on the implementation of a PLM sys-
the market, share them within the IKM system of the tem to provide digitally enabled standardized solu-
Company, and based on this sharing, develop new dig- tions for innovation of Company H’s industrial
ital service solutions for our customers. To date, we processes.
have shared within the Company at least 4,000 new Starting from January 2014, Company I has estab-
digital solutions only in the field of financial services lished the ‘Digital Direction’ unit, which responds
(where we have the main customers), but we are also directly to the CEO. As argued by the Italian branch
trying to extend this sharing practice to other indus- Head of Web & Social, ‘Before the “Digital
tries (where we have however smaller customers), Direction” unit, we conducted all the activities con-
such as energy, automotive, and food. Today, this nected with the use and implementation of digital
innovation unit has become a well-established reality technologies, such as site management, apps, social
(it has been in operation since about 5 years)’. media, internet campaigns, e-commerce, within dif-
Company G is a business school that has handled ferent units of our company. In 2014, we gave birth to
the transition from physical to virtual classroom a six-year strategic plan for establishing a new unit
through the development of a multi-year project, that encompasses and integrates all of these decon-
named ‘Flex EMBA’, which led to the reorganization structed activities linked with digital technologies. In
of the old ‘ICT’ unit in the new (and nowadays con- particular, the digital transformation of our Company
solidated) ‘ICT & Digital Learning’ unit. As argued through the “Digital Direction” has been aimed to
by the interviewed heads of this new entity, ‘The address two main streams, (i) the digitization of activ-
launch of the “Flex EMBA” project completely ities toward final customers (marketing and commer-
changed the role of our R&D unit, which shifted from cialization), and (ii) the digitization of sales processes
a pure back-end (a reality of ICT services, such as the in charge to sales agents. In order to realize this strate-
help-desk, that supported the other areas) toward a gic plan, we were however asked to recover skilled
more front-end (an alternative business unit that com- resources in order to bridge the technological/digital
plemented the sales area) role. In this case, the project gap. Accordingly, we conducted great initiatives in
based on digital technologies implementation for this sense, such as (i) selective search of experts (in
managerial training was the enabler of the restructur- case of skills that were difficult to learn only through
ing. The Company was also required to undertake spe- training courses and in case of a crucial timing per-
cific formation activities for the first lines (the heads formance), (ii) graduate programs for internal offices
of each area) to create a widespread and cross- and employees (also with the support of experts), and
functional awareness on the digital transformation (ii) training courses (or “digital days” for training)’.
process of the company’. In addition, as in the case of According to the answers of the interviewed man-
Company B, Company G formalized a budget of over agers and the cross-cases comparison, it clearly
10% of the turnover per year for investments in digital emerges how digital technologies have called compa-
learning and new digital technologies. nies to reorganize their R&D units and activities (and

150 R&D Management 50, 1, 2020 C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

sometimes to create ex-novo R&D departments) open innovation to study how companies use and
toward more structured entities with a particular focus implement digital technologies in their open innova-
on innovation activities based on digital technologies. tion process. Accordingly, we adopted the theoretical
In particular, (i) technologies’ features standardiza- lenses of change management (Goodman and Dean,
tion (although the peculiar case of Company B), (ii) 1982; Tidd et al., 1997; Kotter, 2007) to understand
budget formalization for digital investments, and (iii) the managerial changes at organizational and at pro-
development of new and formalized procedures for cess level (Davenport, 1993; Todnem By, 2005) to
innovation activities (due to digital technologies), implement with success digital technologies in their
result as the main organizational levers companies open innovation process (Chiaroni et al., 2011).
have adopted to support the management of their In particular, in this paper, we propose an open
open innovation processes in the light of the digital innovation framework mapping the managerial
technologies’ implementation. actions at organizational and process level for the use
and implementation of digital technologies in open
innovation processes. In doing so, we aim to answer
4.2. Managerial actions at process level to the call of Yoo (2010) and Yoo et al. (2010), who
4.2.1. Enabling and enabled capabilities in the invite to provide strategic and innovation frameworks
open innovation process in a digital technology context. In addition, we aim to
The role of digital technologies in the innovation pro- extend existing although limited knowledge on the
cess of companies has called the attention of scholars connection between open innovation and digital tech-
to provide further theoretical and empirical contribu- nologies (Dodgson et al., 2006; Natalicchio et al.,
tions (Agostini et al., 2017). Particularly in the open 2014; Del Vecchio et al., 2016; Agostini et al., 2017)
innovation field, researchers were asked to provide a and invite future research into this subject. First, we
structured view of their use and implementation in highlighted, at organizational level, the need to reor-
open innovation processes (Del Vecchio et al., 2016). ganize the R&D units and activities (and sometimes
Our empirical analysis tries to answer to these calls, to create ex-novo R&D departments) for open innova-
by showing how the use and implementation of digital tion (Goodman and Dean, 1982; Kotter, 2007; Chiar-
technologies in open innovation processes requires oni et al., 2011) through digital technologies, focusing
companies performing managerial actions at process on (i) technologies’ features standardization, (ii)
level. We called these managerial actions, (i) enabled budget formalization for digital investments, and (iii)
and (ii) enabling capabilities. In the first case, compa- development of new and formalized procedures for
nies perform deliberate actions ex-ante and in a particu- innovation activities (due to digital technologies).
lar timeframe to adopt digital technologies. In the Second, we mapped onto the theoretical framework
second case, companies perform ex-post new actions dimensions (idea generation, product or service devel-
triggered by the digital technologies as effect of their opment, commercialization, and inbound (or outside-
previous adoption. According to the answers of the in) open innovation activity) (Chesbrough, 2003; Van
interviewed managers and the cross-cases comparison, de Vrande et al., 2006; Lazzarotti and Manzini, 2009;
we were able to understand how the enabled and ena- Spithoven et al., 2010; Bianchi et al., 2016), the (i)
bling capabilities at process level sometimes change enabled and (ii) enabling capabilities ensuing from
from technology to technology and from phase to and required for their use and implementation at pro-
phase of the open innovation process, allowing firms to cess level. In this case, the enabled and enabling capa-
manage differently the open innovation process and the bilities sometimes change from technology to
inbound open innovation activity. Accordingly, we technology and from phase to phase of the open inno-
finally mapped along the phases of the open innovation vation process, allowing firms to manage differently
process these managerial actions (see Figures 3 and 4), the open innovation process and the inbound open
whereas in Table Table A3 of the Appendix, we pro- innovation activity. Accordingly, the use and the
vide an extensive discussion around these managerial implementation of our set of digital technologies rep-
actions at process level due to each digital technology. resents an important opportunity for companies that
conduct innovation processes in an open perspective,
when we look at the routines, competences, skills and
5. Conclusions capabilities they require and allow to develop.
Although some interesting findings emerged on the
We believe the paper contributes to the ongoing and organizational changes and on the capabilities ensuing
emerging debate of open innovation in the era of digi- from and enabling the use and implementation of digi-
tal transformation of businesses. The paper leverages tal technologies in the open innovation process, fur-
on the research streams on digital technologies and ther theoretical and empirical research is required to

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

extend knowledge in this field and provide more tools, different phases of the open innovation process or the
insights and examples for managerial audience. amount of investments for their implementation.
First, the theoretical framework is a first tentative Indeed, this could provide a more robust discussion
approach that needs to be refined and applied to many around the organizational changes to be performed in
other cases to be enriched and adapted. In other the R&D units for digital technologies. Most impor-
words, for example, an in-depth analysis of the use tantly, this is required because our findings are mostly
and implementation of a specific digital technology in interpretative and analytical to a limited extent.
a specific phase of the open innovation process in a Finally, we want to highlight how in several cases
specific sector of activity is required. In this case, we the large diffusion of digital technologies such as Big
find necessary ad hoc research to deepen the analysis Data, IoT and Cloud Computing, allows obtaining high
on what changes, how changes, how effectively and benefits and creating additional advantages if com-
efficiently changes in each specific phase because of bined together and used simultaneously. In particular,
the implementation of a specific digital technology. we point out how a well-functioning and integrated
Second, the theoretical framework maps a few set of cloud infrastructure is crucial to deal with Big Data in
capabilities along the phases of the open innovation terms of data collection, data storage and data analysis
process, although the exploratory nature of the paper but also to tackle with smart objects connected to a
aims to justify why the enabling and enabled capabil- company network and generating data. Therefore, stor-
ities do not want to be exhaustive for each phase and age and computational power are two critical dimen-
technology. Accordingly, the set of enabling and sions that allow benefiting from the use of these
enabled capabilities discussed in the paper could be technologies. Furthermore, Big Data requires training
used as a starting point to extend the research on how activities for the development of analytical skills,
managing the open innovation process and the which grant the possibility of extracting real value
inbound open innovation activity by using and imple- from a massive amount of data collected and elabo-
menting digital technologies. The exploratory nature rated. In the case of IoT, training activities allow com-
of the paper influences also the number of digital tech- panies to develop new algorithms, which allow a fast
nologies analyzed. This although we conducted a sys- data processing and analysis, a fast time to market, an
tematic research in WoS, followed by a confirmation accurate product/service offering and recommendation
of digital experts, to select a reliable sample of digital practices. Moreover, IoT gives the possibility to be
technologies. Thus, a wide spectrum of digital tech- responsive in terms of problems detection and resolu-
nologies that are useful for different innovation tasks tion, preventive maintenance programs and product
and initiatives could be analyzed in future research. improvement according to customers’ feedbacks,
Third, the paper lacks to consider in the theoretical together with the opportunity of developing strong col-
framework another relevant dimension of open inno- laboration and coordination of activities with custom-
vation, which is the outbound (or inside-out) open ers. In addition, IKM systems require a solid digital
innovation activity. Accordingly, although we took infrastructure that grants the possibility of storing and
into account the Bianchi et al. (2016, p. 505)’s argu- retrieving high quality contents in the fastest possible
mentation that ‘inbound open innovation is a major way. By doing so, resources can benefit from standar-
component of the innovation approach of most inno- dized solutions and availability of pre-defined frame-
vative firms’ (as we believe for our sampled compa- works that avoid to waste time in solutions drafting and
nies), we invite future research to account peculiar definition, focusing directly on solution customization.
challenges entailed by digital technologies in manag- Finally, SoRP and PLM systems require as well a solid
ing both the relevant dimensions of open innovation. digital infrastructure, highly integrated with processes
From a managerial perspective, we believe the and systems, and training activities on product features
paper provides managers, executives and practitioners and product management. On one hand, SoRP allow
operating in the field of open innovation and digital decreasing the amount of time and resources required
technologies with a set of tools, insights and examples to develop and test a prototype, while PLM systems
on an under-researched management and innovation provide companies the possibility of acquiring a high
issue. In particular, we aim to stimulate their own degree of control over the whole product lifecycle,
remarks on a set of managerial actions at organiza- from the idea generation phase to the end of life.
tional and process level that have to be performed to
use and implement with success digital technologies
in open innovation processes. In addition, we believe References
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tion of quantitative elements in our research, such as Ardito, L., D’Adda, D., Messeni Petruzzelli, A., (2017)
the intensity of adoption of digital technologies in the Mapping innovation dynamics in the Internet of Things

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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

West, J., Salter, A., Vanhaverbeke, W., and Chesbrough, industries (biotechnology, and renewable energy,
H.W. (2014) Open innovation: the next decade. energy efficiency and smart grid). The results of his
Research Policy, 43, 805–811. research are documented by an intense scientific pro-
Westerski, A., Iglesias, C.A., and Rico, F.T. (2010). A model duction. Davide Chiaroni is the author of two books
for integration and interlinking of idea management sys-
with international editors, one with an Italian pub-
tems. In: Sanchez-Alonso, S. and Athanasiadis, I.N. (eds),
lisher and more than 100 contributions on interna-
Research Conference on Metadata and Semantic
Research. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. tional and national journals, edited books, and
Woodard, C.J., Ramasubbu, N., Tschang, F.T., conference proceedings. He participated in a number
Sambamurthy, V. (2012) Design capital and design of financed research projects, at national and interna-
moves: the logic of digital business strategy. MIS Quar- tional level, on topics related to his research activity.
terly, 37(2), 537–564. He has been scientific responsible or project leader of
Wu, Y., Cegielski, C.G., Hazen, B.T., and Hall, D.J. (2013) several of these projects, thus managing and organiz-
Cloud computing in support of supply chain ing the research team.
information system infrastructure: understanding when
to go to the cloud. Journal of Supply Chain Manage- Vittorio Chiesa is a Full Professor at Politecnico di
ment, 49, 25–41. Milano – School of Management, where he is mem-
Yin, R.K. (2003). Case Study Research: Design and Meth- ber of the Board. He teaches Strategy and Marketing
ods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. and Energy and Sustainability Management in the
Yoo, Y. (2010) Computing in everyday life: A call for MSc program in Management Engineering. He is
research on experiential computing. MIS Quarterly,
responsible of the Technology Strategy area at MIP
34(2), 213–231.
Yoo, Y., Henfridsson, O., Lyytinen, K. (2010). Research
(the Graduate Business School of Politecnico di
commentary—the new organizing logic of digital inno- Milano) and Director of the Executive Master in
vation: an agenda for information systems research. Energy Management. His main research areas are in
Information Systems Research, 21(4), 724–735. the fields of R&D management, strategic innovation,
Yoo, Y., Boland, R.J., Jr, Lyytinen, K., and Majchrzak, A. creation of start-ups in science based industries. He is
(2012) Organizing for innovation in the digitized world. Director of the Energy & Strategy Group at the
Organization Science, 23, 1398–1408. School of Management of Politecnico di Milano,
Zillner, S., Oberkampf, H., Bretschneider, C., Zaveri, A., which does research and consultancy in the field of
Faix, W., and Neururer, S. (2014). Towards a technology energy management. He has been the Visiting
roadmap for big data applications in the healthcare Researcher at London Business School. He is author
domain. 2014 IEEE 15th International Conference
of six books and more than 200 international publica-
on Information Reuse and Integration (IRI), IEEE.
Redwood City, CA, USA. pp. 291–296.
tions. On the basis of his publications, he has been
included in the list of the Top 60 World’s Innovation
Andrea Urbinati is a PhD Candidate in Manage- Management Scholars in the period 1991–2010.
ment, Economics and Industrial Engineering at the
School of Management of Politecnico di Milano, Federico Frattini is a Full Professor of Strategic
Italy. He is a Visiting PhD Candidate at the Univer- Management and Innovation at the School of Man-
sity of Copenhagen, Department of Food and agement of Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and Honor-
Resource Economics, Denmark. He is also a consul- ary Researcher at the Lancaster University
tant and research fellow in the Energy & Strategy Management School (UK). At the School of Manage-
Group of Politecnico di Milano. His research areas ment of Politecnico di Milano, he is also Director of
are business strategy and innovation management, the MBA and Executive MBA Programs, Coordina-
with a particular focus on disruptive innovation and tor of the Strategic Management Teaching Area, and
on digital technologies. Andrea Urbinati teaches Director of the ICT and Digital Learning Division.
Business Administration and Strategy in bachelor His research area is innovation and technology man-
and master of science programs in Management agement. On these topics, he has written more than
Engineering at Politecnico di Milano. He also teaches 200 books and papers published in conference pro-
Strategy and Innovation in MBA and Executive ceedings and leading international journals such as
MBA courses at MIP, the Graduate School of Busi- Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Academy of
ness of Politecnico di Milano. Management Perspectives, California Management
Review, Journal of Product Innovation Management,
Davide Chiaroni is an Associate Professor of Strat- and many others. In 2013, he was nominated among
egy & Marketing at Politecnico di Milano. His the top 50 authors of innovation and technology man-
research interest is in the management of innovation, agement worldwide by IAMOT, the International
with a particular focus on high tech and regulated Association for Management of Technology.

C 2018 RADMA and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

Appendix
Table A1. Sample of companies and innovation
managers involved
Institution Role

Company A Lead Engineer of the Italian branch

Company B Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Company C Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Company D Head of Digital Entity of the Italian
branch
Company E Operations Manager
Company F Digital Strategy Senior Manager and
Consultant Analyst of the Italian
branch
Company G Head of Digital Learning, Head of ICT
and Digital Learning Specialist
Company H Director Business Development Mid-
Market of the Italian branch
Company I Head of Web & Social of the Italian
branch
The real names of the companies are withheld for confidential-
ity reasons.

Table A2. Interview protocol

Company background
1. Type of firm: market, size, competence, products
2. Organizational structure and context
3. Organization and innovation management activities
4. Organization and management of the open innovation process
Use of the digital technology
1. What digital technology is used in your company to manage the open innovation process?
2. In which phases of the open innovation process is your digital technology used (i.e., ideageneration, product
development, commercialization)?
3. Does the use of your digital technology involve external actors (and at which level of thevalue chain, i.e., suppli-
ers, customers, other types of partners, etc.)?
4. Why is it used? What type of output does it generate?
Impact of use of the digital technology
1. What impact does your digital technology have on the performance of human resources? What impact does it
have on human resource habits? Does it change the way
they work and how?
2. What impact does the use of the digital technology have on the way the human resources work with partners, cli-
ents or customers, suppliers, and across functions and
other divisions?
3. Which types of activities are required to use and implement your digital technology? Was your company required
to perform specific managerial actions at organizational
and process level for its implementation? Were specific
managerial actions required at process level in each
phase of the innovation process?
4. Does the use of the digital technology change the way the company manages its open innovation process? What
impact does your digital technology have on the overall
performance of the company?
5. Which lessons have been learned in your company from the use and implementation of the digital technology?
Problems of use of the digital technology
1. Which innovation problems and challenges were faced during the use and implementation
of your digital technology?

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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

Table A3. Enabling and enabled capabilities along the phases of the innovation process

Big Data Big Data technology mainly enables acquiring, storing, and processing data, and then transform
these into new ideas and solutions. This is generally the case in all the firms in our sample
that adopt this technology, although its use may change in the different phases of the open
innovation process. For instance, Company B mostly uses this technology in the idea genera-
tion phase and to create personalized services and product offerings for its customers, as well
as monitoring their purchasing behavior. The reason that Big Data is not involved in the prod-
uct development phase is explained by the Chief Information Officer (CIO), ‘Company B is in
a second innovation phase: in the past, it was easier to innovate and create new solutions
because there was ample room for innovation. Nowadays, being innovative is much more dif-
ficult and what happens is that you try to innovate old processes or products using available
solutions and try to combine or apply them in a new way by exploiting information flows
from outside’. Obtaining value from Big Data calls for good analytical skills. Indeed, Big
Data analytics allow examining large datasets to identify hidden patterns, unknown correla-
tions, market trends, customer preferences, and other useful business information.
In terms of Company C, the Big Data technology covers all the phases of the innovation process
with specific characteristics. In the idea generation phase, Big Data offers a robust database
and data analysis procedures that through complex algorithms enable understanding new cus-
tomer needs and developing new product concepts. The firm’s aim is to validate these con-
cepts and once the assessment and validation feedback is positive, start to produce and sell
the machineries. The company has institutionalized a procedure according to which the evalu-
ation of new product concepts and their development phase is supported by formal ‘assess-
ment programs’ that directly involve final customers. In doing so, customers can always be
connected with the firm. On the other side, the company receives significant quantities of free
data, which are stored and carefully analyzed to allow it to understand how its machineries
perform in different contexts and how customers use them. Moreover, as asserted by the Chief
Technology Officer (CTO), ‘The close relationships established with all customers allows our
company to control and continuously monitor the single machineries or the fleet of machi-
neries, and this strongly helps during the product development and testing phase’. In particu-
lar, Company C usually tests new solutions on a selected cluster of customers that are more
willing to adopt new solutions to simplify actual procedures and processes. In the commercial-
ization phase, the high integration with IoT ensures a well-functioning reporting system as
well as consistent data and information processing.
In the case of Company D, Big Data offers robust database and data analysis procedures in the
idea generation phase that enable the firm to understand new customer needs and develop new
product concepts. In the product development and commercialization phases, the Big Data
technology is adopted to provide new consultancy practices that bring more value to custom-
ers or can simply suggest small adjustments to enhance standard practices. The activity of
inbound open innovation is particularly supported by the co-design with customers, who
actively participate in analyzing problems, bringing internal perspectives and learning new
working methodologies.
Conversely, Company E uses Big Data only in the commercialization phase mainly to support
digital offerings for patients by providing decision-support systems, customer experience, and
on-demand documentation. The Operations Manager states, ‘Since the introduction of this dig-
ital technology, our company is steadily growing by 10–20% every year. Certainly, maintain-
ing this rate of growth in the coming years will be more and more difficult, but the new data
analytics methodologies and procedures enabled by the implementation of Big Data give us
the possibility to be competitive on the market by monitoring drug consumption and therapies
provided to each patient’.
In Company F, similarly to Company D, Big Data analytics support the development and offering
of new consultancy practices. In particular, they allow examining large datasets to identify hid-
den patterns, unknown correlations, market trends, customer preferences and other useful busi-
ness information. The Digital Strategy Senior Manager states, ‘The analytical findings can lead
to more effective marketing, new revenue opportunities, better customer service, improved
operational efficiency and competitive advantages over rival organizations’. Moreover, in the
product development phase, customers are increasingly involved in testing pilot solutions. An
important aspect concerns the development of new training activities enabled by digital technol-
ogy adoption. Indeed, as the Digital Strategy Senior Manager pointed out, ‘Our Company oper-
ates in an extremely dynamic environment. This sometimes can be frustrating, but quite
interactive and challenging. The external dynamics require our company to internally develop
new training activities that employees can attend to support their continuous learning process’.
Company I combines the use of Big Data in the commercialization phase with the existing CRM
to collect and process all the information acquired by the IKM and create a recommendation
system able to develop focused marketing-campaigns for potential customers.

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Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

Internet of IoT solutions allow connecting and analyzing data from different physical sources. In particular,
Things (IoT) IoT supports Company B in the idea generation phase by connecting point-of-sale digital
devices and signage, which allows customers to interact with them and the company to create
new ways through which to provide services. On the other side, IoT perceive more accurate
customer profiles. Indeed, through the interconnections of physical sensors in the bookstores,
the company tracks and monitors customer behaviors. This supports the commercialization
phase by optimizing the distribution and shelf positioning of products and services and the
management of stores.
In the case of Company C, the IoT solution involves the product development and commerciali-
zation phases. On the one hand, it allows maintaining connections among machineries in the
engineering process and once they are sold to customers. On the other hand, as stated by the
company’s CTO, IoT allows providing real time reports and information on machinery status
and functioning, which are exploited in the commercialization phase by supporting Big Data
analytics. IoT aims to enable monitoring both single machinery performance and controlling
the entire network of machineries placed on the market. This direct link with all machineries
allows Company C to detect potential production defects or problems and solve them
promptly in the most appropriate way.
Finally, Company G leverages on IoT technology to connect every type of digital device, such
as smartphones, wearable devices, personal computers, e-mail, video and social networks,
which allows creating a user-friendly, attractive and challenging ‘learning infrastructure’. All
these tools, as the Head of ICT underlined, ‘Make up the student’s personal learning environ-
ment’. IoT devices allow gathering information and data related to user platform utilization or
to the customer’s e-learning approach and digital device support. Appropriate algorithms and
data analytics help analyzing the massive amount of data and apply a continuous data moni-
toring policy. As the Head of Digital Learning highlighted, ‘This provides constant and reli-
able information that can be quickly turned into significant cues or suggestions for
improvement actions and new idea generation’. Moreover, the possibility to develop new solu-
tions or to improve current ones with the final customer enables real time feedback that helps
in understanding which specific aspects should be better developed or exploited and which
should be integrated or eliminated. Therefore, the learning process innovation is strongly
related to the IoT technology, which enables triggering a higher level of interaction between
the professor and the class. The inbound open innovation activity conducted by our three
sampled companies, independently of the phase of the innovation process where this technol-
ogy is applied, is enabled by a timely control procedure of customers’ behavior, which hap-
pens by constantly monitoring the amount of information collected from the connection of the
digital devices. This allows resources to implement corrective actions and learn over time
from the information received. Training activities on the use and implementation of IoT are
necessary also in this case to foster and nurture resources’ technical and digital competences.
In the case of company G, training activities are provided under the guise of monthly webi-
nars that allow increasing the knowledge on the potential of IoT in the innovation process.
Idea and As highlighted in the state-of-the-art section, IKM systems can integrate and apply the special-
Knowledge ized knowledge of internal resources in the idea generation phase to create and sustain the
Management upstream competitive advantage. This occurs, for instance, in Company F. Indeed, when an
(IKM) systems employee has an idea, the on-line community platform enables uploading the concept and
description seeking comments, suggestions and advice from other employees. The on-line
community platform consists of (i) a research platform, a type of internal Google browser that
is able to retrieve data from the company’s repositories, (ii) an online community, which
allows employees to directly exchange information or views on specific problems, challenges
and innovative solutions with colleagues on a worldwide base, and (iii) a ‘point of view’, a
cluster of around 50,000 people belonging to the worldwide R&D units that design and
develop research, credentials and project frameworks that are made available for easy analysis
and adoption by all top managers. The outside-in activity is enabled by involving customers
in the platform to provide insights on the ideas proposed and then analyze customer percep-
tions and reactions. As the Digital Strategy Senior Manager stated, ‘Company F has estab-
lished an accurate and timely procedure of monitoring ideas coming from customers in order
to allow internal resources sharing, recombining and formalizing new knowledge’. Strictly
required are training activities on the use of the on-line community platform to develop and
nurture absorptive capacity of internal resources of outside knowledge. In doing so, employees
develop a type of desorptive capacity of the recombined inside knowledge, which is exploited
to perform better with customers.
As for Company I, and similarly to Company F, the IKM system supports the idea generation
phase and allows transferring the knowledge created by employees once this was shared and
recombined with ideas coming from customers. Moreover, the Head of Web & Social of the
Italian branch stated, ‘Frequently, some ideas coming from the Idea and Knowledge

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The role of digital technologies in open innovation processes

Management system are selected to be analyzed more in depth and to evaluate their feasibil-
ity. Mostly, ideas that have the potential to solve critical issues or develop interesting solu-
tions are presented to the board that generally requires candidates to bring a business plan to
decide whether to implement the proposed ideas or not’.
Cloud Cloud computing is mainly used to support the activity of Big Data and IoT. In the case of
Computing Company B, Cloud Computing provides the necessary storage infrastructure that collects and
stores the massive amount of data from websites, company applications and all the IoT sen-
sors and solutions. As the CIO highlighted, ‘Reliable storage power is fundamental to be able
to collect and store all the useful data that will be analyzed to find useful information related
to customer needs and behaviours. This with the aim of developing new solutions and prod-
ucts and to create ad hoc offerings for all the possible types of customers’. An accurate level
of computational power helps Company B process data quickly and extract valuable informa-
tion related to different aspects, i.e., new market trends, new feature requirements, customer
satisfaction, new customer behaviors or changes in standard habits.
In Company I instead, Cloud Computing supports Big Data in the commercialization phase by
guaranteeing the necessary infrastructure for data collection, data storage and data analysis.
As the Head of Web & Social of the Italian branch stated, ‘Cloud Computing can be consid-
ered as an overarching technology that provides the possibility for Big Data to work properly
and create value for the company. In this case, Big Data requires a well-functioning and reli-
able cloud infrastructure, which collects, stores and analyzes all the information flows
acquired every day’.
In the case of Company E, the Cloud Computing solution provides an accurate level of computa-
tional power by supporting Big Data in the commercialization phase to quickly process data
and extract valuable information related to patients’ actual conditions, treatment prioritization
or other useful cues for internal research projects. The inbound open innovation activity con-
ducted by our three sampled companies, independently of the phase of the innovation process,
consists in a routine scouting and identification of new applications that tackle specific use
cases, such as behavioral and sentiment analysis, which can be relevant to identify latent
needs of external users. In addition, the use and implementation of Cloud Computing has
enabled in these companies the establishment of a cognitive computing platform, i.e., a com-
prehensive set of technological capabilities, such as data mining, pattern recognition, machine
vision and natural language processing, which allow resources to learn in real-time and to
improve over time their technological knowledge.
Product The empirical study shows that PLM helps connect, organize, control, manage, track, consoli-
Lifecycle date, and centralize all the mission-critical information that affects a product, starting from the
Management idea generation up to commercialization phase. In particular, in Company A, the PLM solution
(PLM) systems ‘offers a mode to streamline collaboration and communication among product stakeholders,
such as technology providers, as well as among the engineering, design, manufacturing and
quality phases’. Moreover, the PLM system enables reducing the complexity of products and
components thanks to standardizing the design and planning tools and processes. The inbound
open innovation activity is enabled by training activities that conceive the phases of pre-
planning, planning, concept, build, test, validation, go live and maintenance, supporting inter-
nal resources to develop and nurture standardized methodologies and procedures. In addition,
Company A has institutionalized a routine procedure for which final customers provide feed-
backs on product development state every time it crosses the engineering, experimentation
and manufacturing phases. As Company A’s Lead Engineer of the Italian division explained,
‘The use and implementation of technology is not a problem at all, it just requires good train-
ing experience’. Indeed, problems immediately arise in getting employees to understand the
change suggested, embrace it and then practically carry it out. Resources using PLM must
manage and deal with all the product’s features and the related issues. This knowledge stems
from people’s working experience in the company and is improved through ad hoc training
activities in all phases of the innovation process. As indicated in the synoptic table above,
PLM in Company A allows developing standardized procedures and methodologies, which are
constantly updated thanks to the exchange of information between business units and organi-
zational divisions enabled by the PLM technology.
The same occurs in Company H where PLM enables the constant update of standardized proce-
dures and methodologies that release products to the market on a large scale and in a reasona-
ble time. In addition, the high level of standardization supported by training activities in all
phases of the innovation process leads to an easier and faster learning process. In doing so,
internal resources can promptly apply what they learn to practical activities, improving the
time required to learn new procedures or methodologies and transfer knowledge to final cus-
tomers. In the case of Company H, the inbound open innovation is triggered by the training
activity made by technology providers on the employees on all the phases of product concep-
tualization, product development and product commercialization. Moreover, as the Mid-

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Andrea Urbinati, Davide Chiaroni, Vittorio Chiesa and Federico Frattini

Market Business Development Director of the Italian branch affirmed, ‘Employees have to
have good analytical skills and knowledge, regularly nurtured by training activities, to be able
to examine the amount of data generated by each procedure related to the product lifecycle
and transfer it to our customers’.
Systems of Emerging from our empirical analysis is that only Company D uses SoRP to support the product
Rapid development phase through prototype generation, test design and refining competitive solutions
Prototyping for manufacturing customers, which allows reducing costs, increasing speed, modifying and
(SoRP) customizing the offering. Company D’s approach in this phase is strongly linked to practical
and complementary activities of prototyping, such as using 3D printers, augmented and virtual
reality, which are conducted on a daily basis by both designers and makers in the Digital
Entity. In particular, the Digital Entity team works closely with customers to understand prob-
lems, develop new ideas and enhance existing solutions. This sometimes allow recurrent proto-
typing and testing activities to quickly provide adjustments to new or existing solutions as
these are co-developed with customers. The Digital Entity team has internally developed a
type of training activity called ‘digital seeds’: every week, on a voluntary base, a member of
the division organizes a micro-conference on a specific technological topic. In this way, the
entire Digital Entity team is always updated on new technological trends and innovative solu-
tions. This methodology can be easily applied within the digital entity division because there
are no significant hierarchies or barriers among the people of the team. The objective of this
new training practice is to help each member in acquiring knowledge and skills belonging to
past projects or solutions and including colleagues’ experiences on technological and digital
topics. The high quality of the contents discussed during these conferences brought Company
D to think about a methodology through which it will be possible to record and provide all
the contents on an internal shared platform. Therefore, the ‘digital seeds’ have enabled the
institutionalization of scheduled networking activities that develop cross-exchange resources’
competences and knowledge.

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