Open Innovation

Introduction

I wanted to write this book aimed at the widest possible audience, as a natural extension of my personal doctoral research conducted from 2013 to 2017. In this book, I will try to make accessible the “whys” and “hows”, the fruits of the observations, analyses and interpretations I have made throughout this personal research, so as to somewhat raise consciousness of the phenomenon of the “corporate incubator”. For ease of writing, corporate incubation of start-ups will from now on be referred to by the abbreviation “CI”. The notions of managerial innovation, as well as open innovation – which will also be mentioned – will be referred to as “MI” and “OI” respectively.

To recognize that this story began several years ago, I might have entitled it Once Upon A Time There Was Corporate Incubation, but I preferred the title: Open Innovation: The Corporate Incubator. This sober title reflects my desire to understand OI by describing the reality of CI. I do not want to discuss the subject, as is so often done in the press: a subject for hype, where the communication teams of large groups provide many people to explain to us how it is “cool”, “useful” and “highly strategic” to work with start-ups within large groups. Although we cannot deny these aspects, the reality is that corporate incubation is far from being a fairy tale or a gently flowing stream for those who are in charge of this kind of set-up. Actors in corporate incubation will enact a process of uptake and transformation ...