Mapping Open Innovation: A Bibliometric Review to Compare Developed and Emerging Countries

• Published in: Global business review Vol. 18; no. 2; pp. 291 - 307
• Main Authors: de Paulo, Alex Fabianne, Carvalho, Luísa Cagica, Costa, Maria Teresa G.V., Lopes, Jose Eduardo F., Galina, Simone V.R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Delhi, India SAGE Publications 01-04-2017; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Bibliometrics; Business; Citations; Developed countries; Industrialized nations; Innovations; International cooperation; BRICS countries; emerging countries; citation analysis; Open innovation; developed countries; bibliometrics
• ISSN: 0972-1509; 0973-0664
• DOI: 10.1177/0972150916668600

Business and academic interests in open innovation have increased; however, the evolution of this topic in the emerging countries is unknown. This article aims to provide a bibliometric analysis of open innovation in developed and emerging countries. The research has covered 1,925 articles between the years 2000 and 2014 in Web of Science (WoS) database. The terms ‘open innovation’, ‘user innovation’, ‘cumulative innovation, ‘trading know-how’, ‘mass innovation’, ‘distributed innovation’, ‘innovative cooperation’ and ‘collaborative innovation’ have been selected as research keywords, considering their presence in the title, abstract or based on the keywords of the articles. The countries were divided into two groups (developed countries, i.e., G7, and emerging countries, i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa [BRICS]) depending on the degree of research maturity described in their studies on open innovation. Data analyses have revealed a significant increase in the research on open innovation in the past years. However, it was found that a huge discrepancy exists between the two groups on the number of publications and citations. This study confirms, through a bibliometric analysis, some differences which could be found between the two groups and their influence on the reversal of this scenario, which indirectly affects the development of the emerging countries. It was also found that the groups G7 or BRICS are not statistically important factors for the further development of open innovation research. Analyzing individually, G7 countries have greater relevance in the conduction of studies on open innovation, whereas the BRICS countries are still at an embryonic stage of research on this topic.