Openness and collaboration in the food sector: mapping the field

Abstract

Purpose Research in institutional openness and collaboration-based innovation has advanced considerably in the last decade. The complexity and heterogeneity of innovation, however, turn the one-fits-all approach questionable and unveil the need to address several and different settings and industries. The purpose of this paper is to address this demand by mapping the themes covered in the research under the collaborative innovation umbrella having specifically the food and drink sector as a context. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on secondary data sources, namely, a literature review of open innovation in the food and beverage (F&B) sector. Findings This paper builds upon a framework to classify the extant research in open innovation in the food industry and position the advancements in comparison to the general literature in the field. The categorization of the publications shows that topics like the role of networks, innovation systems, user-innovation and research and development alliances have attracted mostly attention so far, but there is still a demand for deeper and more comprehensive investigations. The field would also profit from inquiries that deal with mindset and managerial capabilities, cross-industry partnerships, converging value chains and globalization of innovation, among others. Originality/value To the authors’ knowledge, this is among the first papers to map research topics and research designs that have been covered to date on the field of open and collaborative innovation in the F&B industry.