Stakeholder management in open innovation projects: a multiple case study analysis

Purpose: In recent years, companies have started to open up their Research and Development (R&D) and their innovation activities to external partners. They aim to access new resources and capabilities and to gain shorter time-to-markets. However, as several studies have shown, it can be difficult to manage collaborative (open) innovation projects to achieve desired outcomes. Starting from this premise, the paper investigates how project stakeholder management is different in open innovation projects from traditional R&D projects. Design/methodology/approach: The study has a qualitative nature and is based on the interpretative paradigm with an inductive orientation. The paper leverages interviews with experts involved in open innovation projects conducted in two Science and Technology Parks between Sweden and Italy. Findings: The analysis shows how companies manage multiple stakeholders in open innovation projects and the peculiarities project stakeholder management faces in these projects when compared with traditional R&D projects. The paper shows how the relationships with external partners in open innovation projects are regulated by informal identification and analysis frameworks, which reduce the tensions deriving from these multiple collaborations. In addition, it underlines a set of good practices, and project management aspects for developing effective absorptive capacity of know-how, resources, and capabilities from external stakeholders in open innovation projects. Originality/value: The paper analyzes for the first time how companies manage multiple stakeholders in open innovation projects in a different way from traditional R&D projects. Furthermore, the paper introduces a shift in the focus of the analysis: it focuses on the level of the project conducted through multiple collaborations instead of on the level of the firms involved in the project. Finally, the paper integrates open innovation research with project management research.