Open innovation scorecard: a managerial tool

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to devise a scorecard providing a suite of indicators that give innovation managers a value-oriented, fast but holistic view of open innovation (OI) adoption in their organisations. Design/methodology/approach The theoretical framework is built after a thorough review of OI literature. The managerial tool is developed from the theoretical framework, constructing indicators that can be easily generated by processing data within information systems of companies. Findings The scorecard provides a multi-dimensional conceptualisation of OI adoption in organisations, investigating environment, collaboration and importing/exporting mechanisms. Six indicators are defined: innovation funds, OI employees, collaboration costs, collaboration revenues, importing costs and exporting revenues. Research limitations/implications The devised tool enables the assessment of openness through objective and available data, systematically updated within the information systems of companies and, hence, easily exploitable by innovation managers. In order to meet such conditions, several aspects emerged from the literature review, although relevant, were left out. Practical implications Three dashboards can be derived by exploiting the information available in the scorecard. With the use of such tools innovation managers can both assess the open behaviours of their companies – identifying the trajectories to follow in order to improve performance – and benchmark different OI practices either inside or outside the organisation. Originality/value The scorecard allows innovation managers both to carry out a cost-benefit analysis, evaluating if their organisations are effectively and efficiently generating outputs from OI with the committed resources, and to identify a virtuous circle between the company’s commitment and reputation, joint development, and innovation market opportunities.