Open innovation ecosystem: Towards collaborative innovation

Innovation is a precondition for the success of companies in today's markets to differentiate from their competitors. Particularly disruptive innovations are addressed in numerous research contributions, product contests and advertisements. They carry a high risk of failure and often require a high investment in research and development. (Watty, 2013) Corporate groups are often very successful in specialized market segments and with incremental innovations adapted to the needs of their customers. Regarding disruptive innovations, startups and small businesses have better capabilities capturing a new market in a minimum of time (Christensen, 2013). This paper addresses the research question how an Open Innovation Ecosystem can boost the innovation capability of its community. It describes the context of an (open) innovation system from an engineering perspective and foucses on challenges and opportunities of today's businesses. In conclusion, an exemplary case of an Open Innovation Ecosystem referred to as TechShop@UnternehmerTUM is introduced. Outlining an approach, in order to gather information about companies' way to systematically implement an open innovation space.