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Over the past decade, the concept of open innovation has received substantial attention. Research has ranged from case study representations to large-scale quantitative studies using the Community Innovation Survey data or developing novel approaches to measuring open innovation. In this study, we conceptualise and validate a firm-level measure of proclivity for open innovation, which relates to the firm's predisposition to perform inbound and outbound open innovation activities. To do so, we focus on smaller firms, assessing their organisational and behavioural perspectives related to open innovation. Building on existing scholarly research and a field study, we begin by conceptualising the theoretical framework of the multidimensional construct. We then develop and validate its measurement scale on two cross-cultural samples. The measure contains the following dimensions: inward IP licensing and external participation, outsourcing R&D and external networking, customer involvement, employee involvement, venturing, and outward IP licensing. Our results indicate that the measure has good reliability and validity. Implications for future research are also discussed.
Keywords: open innovation; proclivity; scale development; construct validity
1. Introduction
Academics and business practitioners alike concur that open innovation is instrumental for sustaining competitive advantage in innovation and overall organisational competitiveness. Open innovation is a multifaceted phenomenon that has been conceptualised by Chesbrough (2003) and his followers (e.g., Chesbrough & Crowther, 2006; van de Vrande, de Jong, Vanhaverbeke, & de Rochemont, 2009) as an umbrella paradigm of specific organisational activities in the field of innovation. As stated by Huizingh (2011, p. 3), "Chesbrough connected the processes of acquiring external knowledge and exploiting internal knowledge externally by placing them both under the open innovation umbrella" that "encompasses, connects, and integrates a range of already existing activities". The early research on open innovation was primarily based on case studies of industry practice (e.g., Chesbrough, 2003; Dodgson, Gann, & Salter, 2006; Rohrbeck, Holzle, & Gemunden, 2009). Such studies were followed by quantitative studies analysing open-innovation-related issues in larger sets of empirical data, using the Community Innovation Survey (e.g., Ghisetti, Marzucchi, & Montresor, 2015; Laursen & Salter, 2006; Teirlinck & Spithoven, 2008) or collecting primary data (e.g., Cheng & Huizingh, 2014; Schroll & Mild, 2011; van de Vrande et al., 2009). More recently, several novel approaches to measuring open innovation have emerged (West, Salter, Vanhaverbeke, & Chesbrough,...