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The government as actor in open innovation: how the Dutch government stimulates open innovation

Groeneveld, Rudy (2008) The government as actor in open innovation: how the Dutch government stimulates open innovation.

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Abstract:Over the past years there has been a shift from closed to open innovation in management literature. A lot of attention has paid to the open innovation paradigm. Research on open innovation has mainly focused on companies and knowledge institutes. However, innovation system literature identifies a third important actor, namely the government. With this thesis I want to focus on this important actor of open innovation. Therefore, this study systematically assess the Dutch politics on open innovation. In this research is made a distinction between generic and programmatic policies. Generic policies focus on short term results, participation is individually or a collaboration between companies and/or knowledge institutes. The results are only for the participants. A programmatic policy has the objective to realize a goal in the future. Programmatic policies are an impulse to start an initiative which will be further developed by the market. The focus of this thesis is on the generic (open) innovation policies. Following from this study is that the Dutch politics on open innovation offers space for improvements. A list of eight recommendations has been made up, which contribution can be found in stimulating a more open manner of innovation in the Dutch knowledge economy. These are: 1. Stimulate with open innovation policies the creation of interactions and networks between companies. 2. Enlarge SBIR Pilot with more budget and make this open innovation policy applicable to every start up and SME. 3. Focus in open innovation policies more on the use of created knowledge which is available in knowledge institutes. 4. Stimulate companies more to participate in fundamental research. 5. Try to interest companies in open innovation with more open innovation policies which focus on the outside-in process and reduce open innovation policies which focus on the coupled process. 6. The government should actively participate in innovation projects and help companies to develop new ideas and not only giving subsidy. 7. The government should use different instruments like subsidies, innovation advisors like Syntens, government as customer of innovation and an electronically knowledge bank. 8. The government should companies make more aware of the necessarily of open innovation. The conclusions which form the basis for these recommendations are clarified briefly below. 1) With open innovation policies the goal of creating public-private interactions and networks is only reached in doing research and not in the development and commercializing of open innovations. It is also important that there will be created networks of companies in order to develop and commercialize open innovations. 2) To strengthen start ups and SME’s the government have to invest more to reduce the risks of start ups and SME’s. To enlarge SBIR Pilot with more budget and to make this open innovation policy applicable for every start up and SME, the government reduce these risks. 3) Companies recognize the need for open innovation, but only participate in open innovation when it is necessary for the production process. Because companies do not actively collaborate with knowledge institutes other than is necessary for the production process, companies do not know which knowledge is available and do not use this Master Thesis Business Administration 4 knowledge. 4) Open innovation policies stimulate especially the research stage of open innovation, while companies especially invest in the development stage of open innovation. In order that companies could invest and produce in the future it is very important for a knowledge economy that new created knowledge will be used to produce new products and services. 5) The government is especially stimulating the coupled process of open innovation, while companies use especially the outside-in process of open innovation. To interest companies in open innovation the government must stimulate the outside-in process with open innovation policies. When companies participate in these open innovation policies the government must try to stimulate these companies to participate in the coupled process of open innovation. 6) The government can play an important role in open innovation. This is not only giving money but support companies in the development of new ideas. 7) There can be identified a gap between the instruments the government want to use and the government really use. This aspect is strong related to the role of the government in open innovation, the government should participate more actively in innovation projects. 8) There can be concluded that the different methods to inform companies about innovation policies have no effect when companies are not aware of the long-term effects of open innovation. The Dutch government also recognize some limitations of the generic open innovation policies and therefore there are developments in the Dutch open innovation policies. Nowadays the focus of open innovation policies is to stimulate public-private collaboration, the so called programmatic policies. To wrap up, the current generic open innovation policies offer space for improvements. A start has been made to capture these limitations with the introduction of programmatic open innovation policies.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:Business Administration MSc (60644)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/59285
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