From a-value to value-multiplication: leveraging outbound open innovation practices for unrelated diversification in the sensor industry

Open innovation, as a connection-driven innovation paradigm, provides a set of practices, stimulating collaborative and intrapreneurial actions, while facilitating the rethinking of antiquated business models and value propositions. This research contributes to the extant open innovation and technology management literature by (a) conceptualising outbound open innovation and delineating it into two sub-modes: inward and outward and (b) elucidating the role of outbound open innovation as a vehicle for unrelated diversification and enabler of intrapreneurial aptitude within a technology-driven ecosystem. Fifteen in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted within a leading producer of sensing solutions, illuminate new value-creation narratives, grounded in intra and cross-industry innovation, providing novel research and management insights on utilising outbound open innovation practices as a means of leveraging un/under-utilised organisational resources towards developing diversified commercialised offerings and value-adding capability-based activities.