A Systemic Approach for Designing Open Innovation Value Networks

Abstract: The past two decades have seen a number of changes to the business and technological environment that have favored the rise of “open” collaborative innovation as alternative to the more traditional ”closed ” models. The traditional view of innovation as a closed or proprietary system where new ideas are generated from an internal research group or an R&D department is being replaced by open innovation value networks in which enterprises collaborate in a variety of ways with third parties (including their competitors) to generate new or significantly improved products or services. In moving from “closed ” to “open ” innovation enterprises require; a new set of skills and tools to configure an open innovation value network, as well as, radical changes in their organizational structures in order to manage the complex web of relationships inherent in open innovation value networks. In this paper, we apply Systemic Enterprise Architecture Method (SEAM). SEAM offers a systemic conceptualization technique and a set of heuristics useful to analyze and design open innovation. In this paper, our method is illustrated with an example of open innovation in the computer industry. We show how enterprises can design open innovation value networks and identify the organizational structure required to better exploit the opportunities afforded by open innovation.