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In the past decade, in the space industry, many initiatives intended at offering open access to big data from space multiplied. Therefore, firms started adopting business models (BMs) which lever on digital technologies (e.g. cloud computing, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence), to seize these opportunities. Within this scenario, this article aims at answering the following research question: which digital technologies do impact which components the BM is made of?

An exploratory multiple case study approach was used. Three cases operating in the space industry that lever on digital technologies to implement their business were analyzed. Despite concerns regarding reliability and validity, multiple case studies allow greater understanding of causality, and show superiority respect to quantitative studies for theory building.

Big data, system integration (artificial intelligence, high-performance computing) and cloud computing seem to be pivotal in the space industry. It emerges that digital technologies involve all the different areas and components of the BM.

This paper sheds light on the impact that digital technologies have on the different BM components. It is only understanding which technologies can support the value proposition, which technologies make the infrastructural part able to support this proposition, which technologies may be helpful for delivering and communicating this value to customers and which technologies may help firms to appropriate the value that it is possible to seize the impact of digital technologies on BM.

This paper aims to provide a helpful tool for those who plan to implement blockchain-based solutions for the governance of the electronic medical record (EMR) in health-care settings. The goals are to identify each type of stakeholders involved in these projects and to clarify the relevance, to achieve success, of their readiness, intended as availability and ability to adopt blockchain.

The chosen methodology is a multiple case study on three initiatives that used blockchain to manage EMRs. This study relied on multiple sources of evidence. The primary data consisted of two rounds of semi-structured interviews with different informants. This study followed a grounded theory approach and performed within- and cross-case analyses.

This study identified the types of stakeholders – nodes and not-nodes – of the network and how their readiness level affects the implementation of blockchain-based projects applied to EMR. The nodes (e.g. patients and doctors) are pivotal in making the network working once this has been constructed. Out of the four readiness dimensions suggested by literature, motivational readiness, has the higher impact. Not-nodes stakeholders play a pivotal role in the project’s pre-implementation phase. For them, structural readiness is the dimension with the higher relevance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first time that a paper analyses the differences between nodes and not-nodes stakeholders of the blockchain network, in terms not only of type but also of readiness. Identifying the readiness level to implement successful projects is a fundamental step that has never been analysed in the health field.

The role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and digital platforms in enabling connectivity and collaboration among actors is neglected when dealing with outbound open innovation (OI). Moreover, the outbound OI process is not currently defined in a univocal way. Thus, this paper aims to outline the outbound OI phases and to explore role and capabilities of ICTs in supporting it.

Through a literature review approach, the authors specified the outbound OI process. Hence, the authors leveraged the similarities between the knowledge management process phases and the outbound OI phases for developing a conceptual framework that could match the outbound OI phases with acknowledged categories of ICT tools.

Through a process-view, the authors outlined outbound OI as a three-phase process. The authors developed a matrix-shaped framework in which the columns represent the three outbound OI process phases, while the rows are three ICT categories that could be suitable for supporting the outbound OI process.

The framework is designed to guide a deep understanding of how ICTs could support specific phases of the outbound OI process. In so doing, it could be useful for software developers interested in the preliminary design of an ICT platform for outbound OI.

The conceptual framework proposal as follows: specifies a detailed, process-oriented definition of the outbound OI; allows to identify the main ICT categories supporting the phases of the outbound OI process; and provides guidance for further exploration about the role of ICT in outbound OI.

The aim of this paper is to develop the conceptual design of an information and communication technologies (ICT) platform supporting the inbound open innovation (OI) process within the technological developments business unit of Leonardo Defence Systems.

After a preliminary phase concerning the context analysis, methodology includes three main steps: conceptualization of functions; preliminary design; and conceptual design of the system/SW architecture. In each of these phases, the authors tried to merge evidence from the scientific literature with empirical insight emerging from the field.

Results report the conceptual design proposal for an integrated ICT platform supporting the OI. It includes the conceptualization of main functions, the preliminary design deriving from use cases and the proposal for the overall system architecture and data model.

The research focuses only on the conceptual design phase; at this stage, the platform has not been still implemented or tested. Also, generalizability concerns may arise from the single-application context.

The outcoming conceptual design can be useful for firms that open their boundaries to external partners, as well as for software developers which could draw on it. Firms approaching similar OI challenges can re-contextualize the platform to their own setting.

Originality of this research relies on the attempt to show how ICT can support firms in their OI processes and, secondly, to support firms aiming to create a positive environment that encourages people at leveraging existing external technological opportunities and sources of knowledge. In so doing, a systematic design approach to the definition of the conceptual proposal is also pursued.

Open innovation (OI) literature suggests that firms can improve their innovation performance by learning from a large set of actors in the innovation process. However, the extant literature has overlooked the “who” question: which partners should be included in the different phases of the innovation funnel? How should they be selected? This paper aims to offer, while focusing in the early phases of the innovation process, a list of possible criteria for partner evaluation and suggests a structured methodology for their selection.

An empirical test of both the criteria and the methodology is presented with reference to a company operating in the Advanced Underwater Systems sector. The authors propose a peer-based modification of intuitionistic fuzzy (IF) multi-criteria group decision-making with TOPSIS method (peer IF-TOPSIS). IF-TOPSIS allows coping with subjectivity, imprecision and vagueness in group decision-making problem under multiple criteria.

The paper proposes an innovative application of a peer-modified version of IF-TOPSIS to a challenging and complex decision problem – partner selection for OI – which is usually subjected to uncertainty and evaluation from multiple experts.

This work contributes to the extant literature advancing the criteria that could be used in the selection process, avoiding focusing on single specific aspects of the collaboration phases or on specific types of partners (suppliers).

Intellectual property protection mechanisms (IPPMs) include a variety of methods suitable for protecting valuable intangible assets of companies, and it is of great relevance to study how companies use these mechanisms to ensure the appropriability of innovation, in a context in which innovation is increasingly open. Indeed, there is a tension between the aim to share knowledge with external partners and the need to protect valuable know-how. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship among the use of IPPMs, open innovation (OI), and the innovation performance of companies.

The study is based upon a survey conducted on 477 firms from Finland, Italy, Sweden, and UK in 2012.

The study shows that IPPMs have an indirect impact on innovation performance, mediated by the degree of openness. More precisely, IPPMs positively influence the level of openness, which, in turn, positively influences the innovation performance.

The empirical analysis contributes on two issues widely debated in the literature: the impact of IPPMs on innovation performance and the role of IPPMs as enablers or disablers of OI.

Focusing on some relevant constructs defined by the open innovation (OI) literature (i.e. determinants of openness; openness choices operationalized in terms of collaboration depth with scientific and business partners; organizational and social context; innovation performance in terms of novelty and efficiency), this paper investigates the relationships among such constructs. More specifically, the purpose of this paper is to empirically analyse two types of relationships: between some contextual factors and firms’ openness choices; and among openness choices, a set of organizational-managerial and social factors, and OI performance outcomes.

The authors carried out a theory testing survey, involving four European countries (Finland, Italy, Sweden and the UK). The authors applied descriptive statistics and a series of regressions.

The authors analysed the impact exerted by external and internal variables on the collaboration depth with scientific and business partners: technological trends are relevant to move firms towards external collaborations, with both types of partners; efficiency goals pursued in collaborations are related to the collaboration depth with both types of partners, while an aggressive innovation strategy is positively related only to scientific-partner depth. Besides, collaboration depths with both partners are positively related to the both sides of innovation performance (i.e. novelty and efficiency), but the organizational-managerial and social contexts emerge as relevant mediator variables. Organizational-managerial and external relational social capital exert a beneficial role on the both types of innovation performance, while internal relational social capital benefits only novelty.

The work shows important limitations such as the low level of the explanatory values in the regression models. Therefore, the results must be considered as preliminary explorative insights that may be useful to encourage further studies.

This work serves to raise managers’ awareness on the opportunity of developing organizational-managerial mechanisms, as well as on the importance of social capital to profit from collaborations.

Although during the last decade many researchers have claimed that we are in the era of OI, empirical works, which provide both a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of the phenomenon, are still few. Moreover, the specific action of the context (managerial, organizational and social) as possible mediator of the performance outcomes of openness is empirically under-studied. The authors’ work attempts to fulfil these gaps.

This study aims to explore how firms can enhance their innovation processes by effectively utilizing external knowledge and employing digital technologies. Specifically, it emphasizes the role of absorptive capacity (ACAP) in external knowledge acquisition and assimilation (potential ACAP), as well as transformation and exploitation (realized ACAP), highlighting the necessity of equipping firms with digital technologies to support ACAP activities.

To achieve the research purpose, we conducted a structured literature review of academic papers sourced from Scopus-Elsevier.

The key findings encompass the identification of common digital technologies supporting ACAP and explore how these technologies contribute to knowledge acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation. The main results show that social media and online communities are the most studied technologies in relation to ACAP activities. Research predominantly centres on potential ACAP – with acquisition activity more studied than assimilation – rather than realized ACAP – with only social media and online communities demonstrating full support for transformation and exploitation activities.

This research represents a pioneering joint study of ACAP and digital technologies, advancing understanding beyond organizational perspectives and expanding open innovation literature by integrating ACAP role in technology collaborations. A call for qualitative investigations into the relationship between digital technologies and ACAP emerged.

The findings offer valuable guidance to innovation managers, aiding them in selecting appropriate digital technologies to strengthen ACAP activities.

This work’s uniqueness lies in bridging the gaps between open innovation, ACAP and digital technologies, which are often studied in isolation.