Networks of Interorganisational Knowledge Development Within the Open Innovation Context: The Case of R&D Intensive Start-ups

The new realities of innovation management are increasingly focusing on open innovation concept, which provides a comprehensive framework for the new, rapid and shared knowledge development process in the new technology areas. The practical implications of the open innovation theory cause many conceptual and also practical problems. The question of actual openness of innovation remains at the top of theoretical and practical discussions as it refers to the development of intellectual capital and its retention, which tends either to remain within certain boundaries of the network of predefined firms, either to remain tacit and distributed across network members, that restricts its reuse and application for other than initial goals. Still, in both cases the knowledge sharing within new technology intensive businesses tends to be restricted and limiting knowledge development opportunities within the open innovation boundaries. The theoretical and practical research has advanced so far to the specific areas of knowledge sharing and transfer within strategic alliances, business partnerships, and other formal networks. Some research has been focusing on the knowledge creation in the open, soft networks, basically focusing on social communities, and in some cases - communities of practice. The research of knowledge transfer has provided us with many important implications on knowledge transfer preconditions, including research on absorptive capacity, integration of various knowledge sources for innovation, and the behaviour of organisations within collaborative networks, including the alignment and development of organisational structures and cultures for collaboration and knowledge transfer. Still, the knowledge development within organisational networks and facilitation of open innovation remains an important research question. The varieties of networks occur with the different knowledge development goals, and businesses are engaged in a variety of underpinning networks. The issue becomes especially complex in a case of the new high technology ventures that act under the time pressure, and are dealing with technology, market and institutional uncertainties. This paper focuses on the interorganisational knowledge development networks for open innovation. The key questions are focused on the revealing the role of interorganisational network in the open innovation development, the rationales for inclusion of various actors into the knowledge development networks, and contribution of knowledge for innovation by various organisations. Two different knowledge development networks, representing a closed and open interorganisational network for open innovation approach are analysed. The research method applied is a case study approach, which is best suited to the objectives of our study: constructing theoretical approaches and revealing still relatively unknown aspects of the relationships being studied. The interorganisational knowledge development networks chosen for analysis come from the high technology industry (optics and medical devices, NACE 33). Both networks are facilitated by globally born SME's (Vittamed, and Ekspla) originating from Lithuania, a small catching up country.