Open innovation & the emergence of a new field: Empowering future generations

Auteurs

A.-L. Mention and M. Torkkeli

Référence

Journal of technology management & innovation, vol. 10, no. 1 2015

Description

Open Innovation has been attracting an increasing interest from academics and practitioners alike over the last decade. Companies are increasingly prone to engage in Open Innovation journeys, yet they face a myriad of challenges, including the fact that their workforce is not endowed with skills that are required to smoothly implement Open Innovation. Interestingly, despite the growing interest of all communities, education in the field is clearly lagging behind, as the analysis of existing innovation curricula reflects. While universities should empower young generations with tomorrow’s required skillsets, they apparently disregard an essential component and neglect to adopt a foresight approach on their core business. In this Academic Letter, we argue that this may relate to the fact that Open Innovation is not yet recognized as a discipline per se and we discuss six forces that may help elevate it to this stage. Overall, we also aim to demonstrate that the journey to establish Open Innovation as a field of education is only beginning.