The impact of external contextual factors on open innovation adoption with emphasis on sector characteristics: Evidences from Iran's advanced materials firms

Over the past decade open innovation has been of interest to several researchers as one of the innovation management theories. The researchers believe that the adoption and efficacy of this approach are influenced by different internal and external contingencies to the firm. The sector or industry’s contextual properties and institutional environment conditions are those external contingencies affect open innovation in the firms. Advanced materials sector as one the pillars of the knowledge-based economy has been less studied by innovation management scholars. In addition, a review of the literature indicates a lack of in-depth research on the adoption and efficacy of open innovation in the context of developing countries, especially in Iran. Identifying these research gaps, this study using qualitative approach based on multiple case studies examines the open innovation among advanced materials firms in Iran. The results of this study supporting incidence of the open innovation among firms in the sector reflect the dominance of inbound open innovation strategy using financial and non-financial methods. The studied firms, use open innovation strategies to overcome both technical and market challenges. Although the studies firms face several challenges in their open innovation practices, expansion of higher education and research and spread of the internet are the factors facilitating the adoption of open innovation among Iranian firms.