Open Innovation in Services? A Conceptual Model of Barriers to Service Innovation Adoption

Recently, there has been an increased focus on the service sector as a source for economic growth and development.  This is particularly true in the knowledge-based services where the need for innovative service offerings in the global market continues to grow.  The open innovation model is one which has been gaining in popularity as the technology continues to improve the ability for global collaborations and partnerships. Currently, little is understood of innovation in the services, and in particular open service innovation.  This paper presents an extension of existing models of open innovation focusing on innovation sources and diffusion of open service innovation.  Particular attention is paid to the potential barriers to open service innovation in order to demonstrate the additional complexities in managing open service innovations in comparison to their physical good counterparts.  The conceptual model provides insight into areas for future research at the individual, meso-, and macro-levels to better understand the factors that influence open services innovation, situations in which open innovation is most practical, and intricacies necessary to support open innovation in services.