eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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Today’s business environment requires companies to constantly develop and introduce new products and services. With rising R&D costs yet increasing quality demands, companies are looking into the opportunities of open innovation. In this thesis, the open innovation subject is approached from the point of view of innovation intermediaries. These Internet-based service providers offer a range of services to help companies to fill the case-specific capability gaps by reaching the resources of relevant knowledge providers.

The study shows that one-time knowledge providers transmitted by innovation intermediaries cannot be used in all cases. Supplier involvement depends on the complexity of the developed product, the capabilities of the supplier as well as positive past history which lead to an appropriate level of supplier development responsibility. In this light, one-time suppliers could be utilized in value-adding, discrete development tasks. This can be considered as beneficial to the company because it enables moving straight into the development phase of the best ideas having invested limited resources into research and ideation.

Following the empirical research which concentrated on what KONE gets from participating in the IDBM and PDP student development projects, the findings show that the value comes in the form of the opportunity to get ideas outside the KONE dominant logic and the potential added value that these may generate in the future.