Last updated August 7, 2010
Open Innovation with Suppliers:
Research Perspectives and Strategic Practices
Academy of Management
Montréal
Saturday, August 7, 2010, 4:45-7:15 p.m.
Le Palais Des Congres in 511B


These pages are about the PDW being held during the Academy of Management 2010 meeting in Montréal. (See the official program entry). The goal of the PDW is for the participants to jointly develop an understanding of how research on open innovation and supplier involvement can be integrated, combined and contrasted.

Participants

The session was organized by Holger Schiele and Frank Piller . The scheduled presenters and facillitators are:

  • Frank Piller is a chair professor of innovation management at RWTH Aachen University, Germany.
  • Holger Schiele, is Professor, holding the chair of Technology Management at the University of Twente, The Netherlands.
  • Stephan M. Wagner is Professor and holds the Chair of Logistics Management at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).
  • Joel West is Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at San José State University.

Schedule

The presentation will include keynote presentations, two rounds of using “World Café” approach for small group discussion, and a concluding wrap-up.

Introduction
4:45 p.m. Frank Piller and Holger Schiele Reflection of last year’s PDW on open innovation and introduction to the topic / introduction on the World Café method
Growing Ideas
5:00 p.m. Seed Presentations I: Joel West and Stephan Wagner Open innovation research and early supplier involvement – two sides of the same coin?
5:30 p.m. First World Café round Interactive part – participants will discuss on the issues raised through the seed presentations
Applying Ideas
6:00 p.m. Seed Presentations II: Frank Piller and Holger Schiele Case studies on open innovation along the value chain – and empirical results on how to organize for being open for suppliers’ innovations
6:30 p.m. Second World Café round Interactive part – participants will discuss on the issues raised through the seed presentations
Conclusion
7:00 p.m. Harvesting All Presentation of results from interactive group discussion, reflection and action; large group reflection and discussion of what was learned and of future actions

Abstract

Over the past two decades, the process of generation of innovations has fundamentally changed. The classical form of in-house innovations developed in the laboratory of a particular firm has given way to a more network-oriented design, firms involving several partners from different organizations – customers, competitors, suppliers, universities etc. This phenomenon has gained intensive attention by scholars and practitioners alike. Two large research streams have emerged: one stream often labeled “open innovation” research and another discussing new product development issues. The first stream is largely building upon the work of Chesbrough (2003), as well as related work by von Hippel (1988, 2005) on users and other external sources of innovation. This stream considers collaboration by firms with customers and competitors to create and refine innovations. While these streams allow for contributions by suppliers to such innovation, in practice such contributions are under-researched. These researchers are more often anchored in the TIM division of the Academy of Management.

The second stream of research has a focus on early supplier integration in new product development, their protagonists often being “at home” in the OM division. The two groups of researchers are dealing with one single phenomenon, though from different angles. Interestingly, they do not seem to explore the overlap very often. A recent review on early supplier involvement concluded that “chiming with the idea of open innovation” would be a fruitful avenue for the researchers in early supplier inclusion (Johnsen 2009). This PDW exactly seeks to bring researchers from the two fields together in order to discuss the overlap and explore cross-fertilization, eventually contributing to a holistic understanding of networked innovations. In order to create an open space for discussion, this PDW will built upon seed presentations from the two fields and employ the “World Café” method with small group discussion on several round tables to bring participants together.