Combining open innovation with corporate venturing: a case of how to balance incremental and radical innovation

By combining existing research on open innovation and corporate venturing, this article explores methods by which a firm can organise open innovation activities in a comprehensive innovation setup. This setup concurrently manages to create and sustain incremental and radical innovative efforts for developing its business. Discussions draw on findings from a qualitative case study of the Danish industrial firm Danfoss Group. Findings reveal that employment of inbound, outbound, and coupled open innovation processes vary between the firm’s divisions and incubator as the innovation purposes and strategies of these correspond to different open innovation processes. Further, the incorporation of open innovation processes into Danfoss’ comprehensive innovation setup highlights that these not only take form in relation to external partners but also between units of the firm, thus the notion of intra and inter open innovation processes is introduced.