USER-INVOLVEMENT AND OPEN INNOVATION: THE CASE OF DECISION-MAKER OPENNESS

The promise of customers as an external resource for new-product development (NPD) has been recognized in theory and practice for a long time. Technological progress has increased the interaction between companies and users. Yet the involvement of users in NPD depends on the ability of decision-makers to act as boundary spanners. There is a cognitive distance between NPD decision-makers and users. The larger this distance is, the more novel information is contained in user inputs. True open innovation requires that these cognitive distant inputs are treated in NPD. We find that decision-maker openness is significant for NPD openness to be true. Successful collaboration in form of innovations builds on involvement of launching and lead users in NPD. Our analyses show that decision-maker openness facilitates the involvement process. Further, low decision-maker openness traps the implementation of open innovation.