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INDUSTRIAL MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Call for Papers
Managing Open Innovation in Business-to-Business Relationships:
A Project-Level Approach
Deadline for submission: July 1st 2019

Industrial Marketing Management announces the call for papers for a special issue on Managing Open Innovation in Business-to-Business Relationships: A Project-Level Approach.

Overview and Purpose of the special issue

In an increasingly competitive and saturated business environment, where new products and services are being rapidly and continuously introduced into the marketplace and where customers have an ever greater choice of products and services, firms need to generate relevant product and/or service innovations in order to remain financially sustainable and gain competitive advantage (Markovic & Bagherzadeh, 2018; Sok & O’Cass, 2015). This is why firms are increasingly opening up their boundaries to the external world and involving organizational outsiders ideally in all the stages of their innovation processes – from ideation to product or service launch (Ind, Iglesias, & Markovic, 2017; Smirnova, Rebiazina, & Khomich, 2018). As firms have recognized the value of external knowledge, insights, and ideas to the generation of relevant product and/or service innovations, they have started to build on-going and long-term innovation-oriented relationships with their key external stakeholders (Ind et al., 2017; Sisodiya, Johnson, & Grégoire, 2013). This has resulted in an upsurge of interest in research on open innovation (OI) (Bogers et al., 2017).

OI can be defined as “a distributed innovation process based on purposively managed knowledge flows across organizational boundaries” (Chesbrough & Bogers, 2014, p. 17). OI has become a popular research area not only in the innovation literature (e.g., Bogers et al., 2017), but also in the marketing literature (e.g., Obal & Lancioni, 2013; Randhawa, Wilden, & Hohberger, 2016), as firms purposefully open up their boundaries to achieve success in the marketplace, in terms of competitive advantage, risk reduction, cost efficiencies, brand equity, customer loyalty, and financial performance (Iglesias, Markovic, Bagherzadeh, & Singh, 2018; Ind et al., 2017; Sisodiya et al., 2013), for example. Most of the research on OI in the marketing literature has been conducted in business-to-consumer contexts, for example, through co-creation initiatives with consumers (e.g., Gyrd-Jones & Kornum, 2013; Ind et al., 2017). This is not surprising because, in addition to being traditionally perceived as the key target of marketing activities (Bolton & Saxena-Iyer, 2009; de Jong & Flower, 2018), in early stages of the research on OI, consumers were also seen as the main source of the external ideas, insights, and knowledge that are relevant to the creation of new or significantly improved products and/or services (e.g., Petri & Jacob, 2016; Salter, Ter Wal, Criscuolo, & Alexy, 2015). More recently, however, scholars have recognized the importance of also involving other types of external stakeholders in OI activities, such as suppliers, competitors, universities, or research institutions (e.g., Kohtamäki & Rajala, 2016; Obal & Lancioni, 2013). This has resulted in a growing body of research on OI in business-to-business contexts (B2B OI) in recent years (e.g., Majchrzak, Jarvenpaa, & Bagherzadeh, 2015; Najafi-Tavani et al., 2018; West, Salter, Vanhaverbeke, & Chesbrough, 2014).

B2B OI consists of interacting and forming relationships with other firms or organizations to improve the focal firm’s innovation processes, and thereby achieve success in the marketplace (Estrada, Faems, & de Faria, 2016; Markovic & Bagherzadeh, 2018; Najafi-Tavani et al., 2018). B2B OI is generally undertaken to serve the needs of specific innovation projects (e.g., Du, Leten, & Vanhaverbeke, 2014). An innovation project is a temporary entity comprising a set of interrelated innovation-oriented tasks purposefully planned to solve a particular innovation problem. Innovation projects, even within the same firm, can be different in terms of attributes, such as uncertainty, complexity of innovation tasks, required knowledge and resources, and expected outcomes (e.g., Du et al., 2014). Several scholars have recently argued that considering innovation project attributes is crucial when managing B2B OI (Felin & Zenger, 2014; Lopez-Vega, Tell, & Vanhaverbeke, 2016) and that their effective management can boost the success of firms in the marketplace (e.g., Bogers et al., 2017).

Despite the importance of considering innovation project attributes when managing B2B OI (i.e., studying B2B OI at project level) (Chesbrough & Bogers, 2014; Felin & Zenger, 2014; West et al., 2014), scholars have mostly focused on the firm-level perspective (e.g., firm size, firm openness, firm strategy) to explain how firms can turn B2B OI into firms’ success in the marketplace, in terms of financial performance and customer satisfaction (Estrada et al., 2016; Randhawa et al., 2016), for instance. Whilst the firm-level perspective is useful, there is also a need for a more fine-grained understanding of B2B OI management at the project level to avoid an incomplete understanding of how to manage B2B OI successfully (Bogers et al., 2017; Du et al., 2014). Moreover, the number of project-level studies on B2B OI remains limited (Goduscheit, 2014; Randhawa et al., 2016; Tóth, Peters, Pressey, & Johnston, 2018), being most of them purely conceptual (e.g., Felin & Zenger, 2014). Therefore, this special issue calls for a downward shift in the level of analysis from the firm to the project, and especially invites empirical studies – both qualitative and quantitative.

On that basis, potential contributions may address, but are not limited to the following topics:

• Openness level

• To what extent and how does the focal firm interact with other firms or organizations in innovation projects to achieve marketplace success, in terms of competitive advantage, risk reduction, cost efficiencies, brand equity, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, financial performance, etc.?
• What innovation project attributes should be considered to determine an innovation project openness level that ensures the focal firm’s success in the marketplace?
• How can the interaction between innovation project attributes and higher-level factors (e.g., ?industry- and firm-level factors) help ?innovation project openness result in the focal firm’s success in the marketplace?

• External partner choice

• Which and to what extent other firms or organizations (e.g., suppliers, competitors, research institutions, universities) should be involved in innovation projects to ensure the focal firm’s marketplace success, in terms of competitive advantage, risk reduction, cost efficiencies, brand equity, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, financial performance, etc.?
• How do different innovation project attributes affect external partner choice, and how could this external partner choice threaten or contribute to the focal firm’s marketplace success? ?
• How can firms create an effective portfolio of external partners for their innovation projects to ensure marketplace success?

• Open innovation mechanism choice

• Which open innovation mechanisms (e.g., licensing, R&D contracts, OI platforms and crowdsourcing, equity and non-equity partnerships) are appropriate to collaborate with external partners in innovation projects in order to ensure the focal firm’s marketplace success, in terms of competitive advantage, risk reduction, cost efficiencies, brand equity, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, financial performance, etc.?
• Should firms create an OI mechanism portfolio (i.e., adopt multiple OI mechanisms simultaneously) in order to ensure their marketplace success? Are OI mechanism portfolios contingent on project attributes, and to what extent?
• Which is the best way to design the governance (e.g., incentive systems, communication channels, intellectual property rights) of each OI mechanism to ensure successful interactions and relationships between the focal firm and other firms or organizations?

• Collaboration process management

• How should focal firms manage the interactions and relationships with other firms or organizations in innovation projects in order to achieve their marketplace success, in terms of competitive advantage, risk reduction, cost efficiencies, brand equity, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, financial performance, etc.? How do different innovation project attributes influence the management of the focal firm’s interactions and relationships with other firms or organizations?
• Does the introduction of formality/informality to the innovation-oriented interactions and relationships with other firms or organizations affect the focal firm’s marketplace success, and how?
• Are successful innovation projects likely to combine both collaboration process formality and informality? If so, can the simultaneous adoption of formality and informality in innovation projects put pressure on B2B OI management, and how can firms manage this potential pressure to ensure marketplace success?

• Internal firm practices and/or organizational designs

• Which practices internal to the focal firm (e.g., knowledge sharing, internal communication) and/or organizational designs (e.g., coordination systems, decision-making processes) need to be adopted to ensure that innovation projects result in marketplace success, in terms of competitive advantage, risk reduction, cost efficiencies, brand equity, customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, financial performance, etc.?
• ?How does innovation project openness affect the adoption of organizational designs and/or internal firm practices, and how does the adoption of these organizational designs and/or internal firm practices influence the firm’s marketplace success?

We will give preference to empirical papers – both qualitative and quantitative. However, conceptual papers that explore fundamental issues in, or offer comprehensive frameworks of, B2B OI management from a project-level perspective are also welcome. As Industrial Marketing Management is widely read by an academic and business audience, all submissions should include implications for practitioners.

Preparation and submission of paper and review process

Papers submitted must not have been published, accepted for publication, or presently be under consideration for publication elsewhere. Submissions should be about 6,000-8,000 words in length. Copies should be uploaded on Industrial Marketing Management’s homepage through the EVISE system. You need to upload your paper using the dropdown box for the special issue on Managing Open Innovation in B2B. For guidelines, visit

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Papers not complying with the notes for contributors (cf. homepage) or poorly written will be desk rejected. Suitable papers will be subjected to a double-blind review; hence, authors must not identify themselves in the body of their paper. Please do not submit a Word file with “track changes” active or a PDF file. Manuscripts falling within the scope of the special issue (as described above) and deemed to have a reasonable chance of conditional acceptance after no more than two rounds of revisions will enter the review process.

Please address all questions to the guest editors:

Dr. Stefan Markovic (sm.marktg@cbs.dk)
Assistant Professor, Department of Marketing, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

Dr. Mehdi Bagherzadeh (mehdi.bagherzadeh@neoma-bs.fr)
Assistant Professor, Department of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, NEOMA Business School, France.

Prof. Wim Vanhaverbeke (wim.vanhaverbeke@uhasselt.be)
Professor, Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Hasselt University, Belgium.

Prof. Marcel Bogers (marcel@ifro.ku.dk)
Professor, Unit for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

References

Bogers, M., Zobel, A. K., Afuah, A., Almirall, E., Brunswicker, S., Dahlander, L., … & Hagedoorn, J. (2017). The open innovation research landscape: Established perspectives and emerging themes across different levels of analysis. Industry and Innovation, 24(1), 8-40.

Bolton, R., & Saxena-Iyer, S. (2009). Interactive services: a framework, synthesis and research directions. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 23(1), 91-104.

Chesbrough, H, & Bogers, M. (2014). Explicating Open Innovation: Clarifying an Emerging Paradigm for Understanding Innovation, in New Frontiers in Open Innovation (Eds.) H. Chesbrough, W. Vanhaverbeke, and J. West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 3-28.

de Jong, J. P., & Flowers, S. (2018). Free in, free out? Outbound transfer of user innovations in small UK firms. Industrial Marketing Management.

Du, J., Leten, B., & Vanhaverbeke, W. (2014). Managing open innovation projects with science-based and market-based partners. Research Policy, 43(5), 828-840.

Estrada, I., Faems, D., & de Faria, P. (2016). Coopetition and product innovation performance: The role of internal knowledge sharing mechanisms and formal knowledge protection mechanisms. Industrial Marketing Management, 53, 56-65.

Felin, T., & Zenger, T. R. (2014). Closed or open innovation? Problem solving and the governance choice. Research Policy, 43(5), 914-925.

Goduscheit, R. C. (2014). Innovation promoters—A multiple case study. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(3), 525-534.

Gyrd-Jones, R. I., & Kornum, N. (2013). Managing the co-created brand: Value and cultural complementarity in online and offline multi-stakeholder ecosystems. Journal of Business Research, 66(9), 1484-1493.

Iglesias, O., Markovic, S., Bagherzadeh, M., & Singh, J. J. (2018). Co-creation: A Key Link Between Corporate Social Responsibility, Customer Trust, and Customer Loyalty. Journal of Business Ethics. doi.org/10.1007/s10551-018-4015-y

Ind, N., Iglesias, O., & Markovic, S. (2017). The co-creation continuum: From tactical market research tool to strategic collaborative innovation method. Journal of Brand Management, 24(4), 310-321.

Kohtamäki, M., & Rajala, R. (2016). Theory and practice of value co-creation in B2B systems. Industrial Marketing Management, 56, 4-13.

Lopez-Vega, H., Tell, F., & Vanhaverbeke, W. (2016). Where and how to search? Search paths in open innovation. Research Policy, 45(1), 125-136.

Majchrzak, A., Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Bagherzadeh, M. (2015). A review of interorganizational collaboration dynamics. Journal of Management, 41(5), 1338-1360.

Markovic, S., & Bagherzadeh, M. (2018). How does breadth of external stakeholder cocreation influence innovation performance? Analyzing the mediating roles of knowledge sharing and product innovation. Journal of Business Research, 88, 173-186.

Najafi-Tavani, S., Najafi-Tavani, Z., Naudé, P., Oghazi, P., & Zeynaloo, E. (2018). How collaborative innovation networks affect new product performance: Product innovation capability, process innovation capability, and absorptive capacity. Industrial Marketing Management. Industrial Marketing Management, 73, 193-205.

Obal, M., & Lancioni, R. A. (2013). Maximizing buyer–supplier relationships in the Digital Era: Concept and research agenda. Industrial Marketing Management, 42(6), 851-854.

Petri, J., & Jacob, F. (2016). The customer as enabler of value (co)-creation in the solution business. Industrial Marketing Management, 56, 63-72.

Randhawa, K., Wilden, R., & Hohberger, J. (2016). A bibliometric review of open innovation: Setting a research agenda. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(6), 750-772.

Salter, A., Ter Wal, A. L., Criscuolo, P., & Alexy, O. (2015). Open for ideation: Individual-level openness and idea generation in R&D. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(4), 488-504.

Sisodiya, S. R., Johnson, J. L., & Grégoire, Y. (2013). Inbound open innovation for enhanced performance: Enablers and opportunities. Industrial Marketing Management, 42(5), 836-849.

Smirnova, M. M., Rebiazina, V. A., & Khomich, S. G. (2018). When does innovation collaboration pay off? The role of relational learning and the timing of collaboration. Industrial Marketing Management, 74, 126-137.

Sok, P., & O’Cass, A. (2015). Examining the new product innovation–performance relationship: Optimizing the role of individual-level creativity and attention-to-detail. Industrial Marketing Management, 47, 156-165.

Tóth, Z., Peters, L. D., Pressey, A., & Johnston, W. J. (2018). Tension in a value co-creation context: A network case study. Industrial Marketing Management, 70, 34-45.

West, J., Salter, A., Vanhaverbeke, W., & Chesbrough, H. (2014). Open innovation: The next decade. Research Policy, 43(5), 805-811.

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