Situative open innovation - A model for selecting the right external actors and involving them in an efficient way

Open Innovation describes the opening of companies' innovation process towards their environment (e.g. customers, suppliers, even competitors). Besides other benefits described in literature, companies profit by more radical innovations, shorter time-to-market and better satisfaction of customers' needs. In the context of an explorative interview study with several German large enterprises from different industries we surveyed the application and the transfer of Open Innovation from research into practice, regarding benefits and potential impediments. Besides the overall positive experience of companies using Open Innovation, the majority of them stated that it is still a big challenge to select and involve the right extern actors, fitting to the specific company's situation/condition and issue, as well as to select an appropriate way of involvement. To fulfill this demand, the paper presents a guideline methodology for selecting the right external actors for a specific company's situation and issue, and for selecting the right method for involvement. The concept combines Open Innovation with elements from Requirements Engineering and stakeholder analysis into a holistic approach.