{"id":3996,"date":"2018-03-07T15:47:59","date_gmt":"2018-03-07T19:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/?page_id=3996"},"modified":"2018-04-25T10:38:03","modified_gmt":"2018-04-25T14:38:03","slug":"look-in-not-out","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2018\/look-in-not-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Look In, Not Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It might be more than 85 years old, but Lego is one of the hottest toy companies around\u2014and one of the biggest in terms of revenue. Many commentators credit the Danish company\u2019s renaissance to its embrace of open innovation, the practice of encouraging employees to look beyond company walls\u2014to rivals, customers, universities\u2014for ideas and solutions. Employees with lots of external connections, the theory goes, are better innovators than those stuck working only with their colleagues.<\/p>\n<p>But, at one company renowned for its originality, the theory doesn\u2019t hold up.<\/p>\n<p>After scrutinizing the working habits of 615 of IBM\u2019s most prolific employees, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom\/profile\/siobhan-omahony\/\">Siobhan O\u2019Mahony<\/a>, an associate professor of strategy and innovation, found open innovation might not be worth the hype. She conducted her investigation with researchers from the United Kingdom and Germany.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSurprisingly, we found that our respondents\u2019 most common sources of inspiration for new ideas were their colleagues inside, rather than outside, the firm,\u201d O\u2019Mahony and one of her collaborators <a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2017\/07\/a-study-shows-how-to-find-new-ideas-inside-and-outside-the-company\">wrote in a <em>Harvard Business Review<\/em> article<\/a>. \u201cIn contrast with current theories of open innovation, people with broader external networks were no more innovative than people with narrow external networks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They conclude that external networking can have its benefits, but that it comes at a price.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTime networking outside the firm implies less time learning about the firm\u2019s innovation needs,\u201d they write. \u201cFirms can mitigate these costs by encouraging employees to spend time networking with their internal colleagues, while supporting externally focused scouts to deepen and leverage their outside relationships to boost innovation at the firm.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It might be more than 85 years old, but Lego is one of the hottest toy companies around\u2014and one of the biggest in terms of revenue. Many commentators credit the Danish company\u2019s renaissance to its embrace of open innovation, the practice of encouraging employees to look beyond company walls\u2014to rivals, customers, universities\u2014for ideas and solutions. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13452,"featured_media":0,"parent":3875,"menu_order":11,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"story.php","meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Look In, Not Out - Questrom Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/spring-2018\/look-in-not-out\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Look In, Not Out - Questrom Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It might be more than 85 years old, but Lego is one of the hottest toy companies around\u2014and one of the biggest in terms of revenue. Many commentators credit the Danish company\u2019s renaissance to its embrace of open innovation, the practice of encouraging employees to look beyond company walls\u2014to rivals, customers, universities\u2014for ideas and solutions. 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Many commentators credit the Danish company\u2019s renaissance to its embrace of open innovation, the practice of encouraging employees to look beyond company walls\u2014to rivals, customers, universities\u2014for ideas and solutions. 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