Performance and Potential of Open Innovation Intermediaries

Open innovation intermediaries are increasingly growing and changing the technology market profoundly. Especially in last 10 years, intermediaries have rapidly emerged in technology markets. Companies utilize intermediaries to search and solve innovation problems. The extant literature has very limited studies on intermediaries despite their crucial roles in the technology market. The objective of this study to explore the open innovation intermediary market and how intermediaries differ in their strategies despite they are being in the same industry; the particular emphasis is given on the best practices, effectiveness, characteristics, challenges, and market implications, etc. Five prominent intermediary case companies are considered in the study. Intermediary market for innovation is mostly prevailing in a few advanced countries even though various technologies are distributed globally. There are no well-established theories and models how to organize the intermediary market in practice. Consequently, intermediary market demands further studies to build theories and models. This study is an effort towards building theories and models for intermediary market.