Breaking Internal Silos with Inside-In Open Innovation

Platforms have become such a pervasive innovation strategy for incumbents that they are renamed incumbent-born platforms. Despite being incumbent-born the knowledge flowing between the incumbent and the platform is not friction-free. Previous open innovation studies of incumbent-born platforms focused on knowledge flows across the external boundaries (outside-in and inside-out open innovation). To complement this, view our qualitative case study focuses on inside-in open innovation, i.e., knowledge flows within the organization – incumbent business units and the incumbent-born platform. The incumbent and platform are part of a large German manufacturing company in the MedTech industry. Drawing on the friction-based view, we investigate how knowledge frictions impede inside-in open innovation in incumbent-born MedTech platforms. Our findings point out a range of knowledge transfer frictions, which may hinder open innovation efforts.