Contrasting Innovation Creation and Commercialization within Open, User and Cumulative Innovation

Abstract

While industrial innovation was once assumed to be a vertically integrated process, three recent streams of research — open innovation, user innovation and cumulative innovation — have examined how innovation is created outside the boundaries of the firm. However, within these streams are multiple paths by which innovations are created and commercialized. We identify nine distinct innovation modes, which we systematically classify according to the locus of innovation creation and commercialization, and according to their enabling conditions. Finally, we discuss the contribution of our taxonomy and suggest future opportunities for research on the micro-foundations of each of these streams.