THE FEASIBILITY OF OPEN SERVICE INNOVATION

The innovation management literature suggests that the implementation of open innovation processes accelerate innovation both in manufacturing and service firms. However, most research on open innovation has focused on product innovation in the manufacturing industry. How the characteristics of service innovation affect the feasibility of open innovation in services, has not been given much attention in the literature. This chapter aims to contribute in filling this literature gap by exploring the feasibility of different types of open service innovation conceptually. In a review of the most cited open innovation articles, we identify the main success criteria of four different open innovation types. These success criteria are systematically evaluated against a set of acknowledged characteristics of service innovation. From this evaluation, we suggest that implementation of open service innovation is more likely to be successful for inbound and non-pecuniary rather than outbound and pecuniary open innovation.