How to search for open innovation partners?

Open Innovation (OI) allows the utilisation of external expertise. This can increase the customer integration, reduce the time to market and reduce products' flop rates. However, companies still face challenges when planning and conducting OI. A major issue is the identification and selection of suitable partners (so called OI-actors). Besides OI-actors with specific technical capabilities for solving the primary issue/task of the OI-project, also relevant OI-actors in terms of power and influence need to be involved. In the context of Situative Open Innovation (a methodical procedure model for planning OI-projects), we developed a methodology for identifying suitable OI-actors. Starting with an analysis of existing stakeholders, in the following different search methods are proposed - including a decision support for selecting specific search methods. Identified potential OI-actors are assessed and ranked from a technical and a strategic perspective, and generic cooperation strategies derived for selected OI-actors. By the use case of an industrial project we demonstrate the methodology's applicability and benefit but also show points for further improvements.