Open-I overview:
The project “Open-I: open innovation within organizations” is divided into ten major activities.
Initial situation:
Shortened product life cycles and increasing international competition and complexity, tie market sucess to the ability of an organization to provide the premisis of radical innovation and to implement them in the innovation process effectively. Product and service innovations as well as new technologies enable companies to diversify, adjust and to reinvent themselves.
To meet these challenges, organizations promote an intensive opening of their innovation processes and innovation activities beyond the boundaries of organizations. In that context terms like “open innovation”, “democratizing of innovation” and “interactive value creation” are used. On the part of research, this opening has been acknowleged comprehensively.
Main questions of concern within the Open-I project:
The project adresses the transformation from a “closed innovation” to an “open innovation” model. Whereas “open innovation” beyond organizational boundaries has been studied intensively and it’s practical application has been implemented sucessfully, an other phenomenon has been largely unnoticed. Why do we only focus on processes that cross organizational borders and ignore these intensive processes of opening towards innovation within the company – across teams, departments and oganizational units? Why does “open innovation” work across organizations but not to that extend within organizations? Are not employees the ones who should be able to participate in the innovation ativities? Why do we observe internal structures, processes and basic infrastructures that obviously prohibit open innovation of employees, whereas customers already have the possibility to participate?
Main focus of the Open-I project:
The project is dedicated to questions concerning enabling and realization of “open innovation in organizations”. For this purpose it addresses competence development, cooperation, motivation, and leadership in terms of open innovation in organizations. Furthermore it deals with the IT-support of collaborative innovation processes and the conception, development and adjustment of social software applications for implementation. The project aims to strengthen innovation potentials of organizations systematically, by applying an integrated orientation towards the ability for radical open innovation in the domains of human resources management, organizational management and competence development. Here, the target is to apply the ability for radical open innovation within organizational boundaries and therefore to configurate the competences needed to interact successfully.
Detailed descriptions of the key activities you find here: