Open Innovation - effects on the innovation process

Purpose and goal

We defined thee central goals for the pre-study: 1)Identify challenges for open innovation processes. Our case companies brought forwards a number of issues as being challenging but strategically important and therefore central to our main study. 2)Create a foundation for the main study. The purpose of the main study is to support Volvo and SCA towards more open innovation processes while conducting scientific research. 3)Disseminate knowledge. We reached this thought the workshops conducted at Volvo CE, SCA and with the referent group of private and public organizations.

Results and expected effects

The main result from our pre-study is that Swedish firms perceive a need for opening up their innovation processes, while at the same time, perceive a lack of knowledge about how to carry through open innovation. We also see that the notion of ´open innovation´ in the sense that it is popularly described has clear limitations. The main result of the pre-study is a mutual increase of competence among academia and participating organizations.

Approach and implementation

We have conducted interviews and workshops with about 100 individuals at Volvo CE and SCA and created a deep understanding about what the notion of open innovation implies in a Swedish, industrial context. Through collaborating with a broader group of private and public organizations, we have been able to distribute our results beyond Volvo CE and SCA. This type of qualitative approach has been very well functioning, against the purpose of understanding the context-specific challenges of open innovation as percieved by Swedish businesses.