This paper provides an overview of the main perspectives and themes emerging in research on open innovation (OI). The paper is the result of a collaborative process among several OI scholars – having a common basis in the recurrent Professional Development Workshop on ‘Researching Open Innovation’ at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. In this paper, we present opportunities for future research on OI, organised at different levels of analysis. We discuss some of the contingencies at these different levels, and argue that future research needs to study OI – originally an organisational-level phenomenon – across multiple levels of analysis. While our integrative framework allows comparing, contrasting and integrating various perspectives at different levels of analysis, further theorising will be needed to advance OI research. On this basis, we propose some new research categories as well as questions for future research – particularly those that span across research domains that have so far developed in isolation.

Open innovation is now a widely used concept in academia, business, and policy making. This article describes the state of open innovation at the intersection of research, practice, and policy. It discusses some key trends (e.g., digital transformation), challenges (e.g., uncertainty), and potential solutions (e.g., EU funding programs) in the context of open innovation and innovation policy. With this background, the authors introduce select papers published in this Special Section of California Management Review that were originally presented at the second annual World Open Innovation Conference, held in Santa Clara, California, in December of 2015.

Open innovation has become well established as a new imperative for organizing innovation. In line with the increased use in industry, it has also attracted a lot of attention in academia. However, understanding the full benefits and possible limits of open innovation still remains a challenge. We draw on strategic management theory to describe some of these benefits and limits. More specifically, we develop a dynamic capabilities framework as a way to better understand the strategic management of open innovation, which can then help to better explain both success and failure in open innovation. With this background, as guest editors we introduce select papers published in this Special Section of California Management Review that were originally presented at the fifth annual World Open Innovation Conference, held in San Francisco, California, in December of 2018.