Open innovation marketing

Over the past two decades, open innovation has enjoyed extraordinary fortune in the academic sphere and the business world. The open innovation paradigm advances that firms cannot innovate in isolation, but need purposeful interactions with other subjects and organizations to retrieve new ideas and technologies. As a consequence, more and more organizations are equipping themselves with "open innovation officers," investing in inter-organizational collaborations, and promoting real contests where the two words "open innovation" are ever-present and well-emphasized.

The popularity of open innovation and the fact that the term is sometimes misused suggests that some of the promoted open innovation initiatives could be more geared toward nurturing a good corporate image than achieving disseminating innovation.

This 3-year research project examines the role that marketing plays in the decision to undertake open innovation initiatives.

Circular economy readiness

Policymakers and academics are increasingly discussing the transition from a linear economy to a circular economy (CE) to deal with the constraints of our planet (European Commission, 2020; Yang et al., 2022). A CE is “an economic model aimed at the efficient use of resources through waste minimisation, long-term value retention, reduction of primary resources, and closed loops of products, product parts, and materials within the boundaries of environmental protection and socioeconomic benefits” (Morseletto, 2020) (Page 1). 

Despite the interest in CE initiatives, the global economy is becoming less rather than more circular (Circle Economy, 2021, 2023). A relevant reason behind this regress lies in the effort being placed on the downstream processes of waste management or on the upstream limitation of material throughput in the economy, neglecting other valuable CE initiatives (Iacovidou et al., 2021; Koide & Akenji, 2017). 

Another relevant reason could be that some countries are not ready to contribute towards a CE. In other words, some countries might not have the pre-conditions to implement valuable CE initiatives.

This 3-year research project aims to develop a novel method to establish the readiness of a country for a circular economy.

Circular economy and inter-organisational collaboration

A circular economy (CE) is a production and consumption model aimed at maintaining resources at their highest value possible through a series of initiatives such as reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling of systems, components and materials. Public and private organisations often need to collaborate to implement CE initiatives. Remarkably, despite the growing interest in both CE initiatives and inter-organisational collaborations, the research about their link is still in its early stages. 

This 3-year research project aims to develop a novel model that can guide different types of organisations in choosing “ad-hoc” inter-organisational collaborations to implement specific CE practices.