Way off the mark? Open Innovation Failures: Decoding what really matters to chart the future course of action

Abstract

With the increasing need for firms to implement innovation in their pursuit of competitive advantage, open innovation has attracted the growing attention of academics and practitioners. However, the current literature has been lopsided, focussing predominantly on the myriad benefits of open innovation. We argue that eulogising only the positive aspects of open innovation is insufficient to help firms and motivate future research. Therefore, we recommend increased attention to the dark side of open innovation, which includes failures that can occur at various stages of the open innovation process. A review of the existing literature reveals that although researchers have, time and again, attempted to document failure in open innovation, this literature is comparatively sparse and fragmented. The extant literature also exhibits an apparent lack of effort to encourage future research, as evidenced by the absence of a comprehensive literature review. We aim to address this research gap by reviewing 76 studies identified by applying a stringent search protocol consistent with the systematic literature review (SLR) methodology. The contributions of this SLR include (a) development of a research profile of the relevant literature, (b) identification of five thematic areas, (c) elucidation of research gaps and suggestion of potential research questions as an agenda for future research on failures in open innovation, (d) formulation of a conceptual framework comprising the antecedents and outcomes of open innovation failure and (e) presentation of the various theoretical and managerial implications for scholars and practitioners.