Matchmaking & Open Innovation

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Successful Research: Matchmaking & Open Innovation


Congratulations to SCE researcher Thomas Holzmann for his successful Ph.D. defence after four years of research on 'Matchmaking for open innovation  - Perspectives on multi-sided markets' on 15th December 2014 at 16:15 at Leiden Universtiy (The Netherlands).

Open innovation suggests an exchange of ideas, knowledge, innovation, or technology across the boundaries of firms in collaborative settings and on markets. Research has shown that markets for innovation and technology do not work properly. Innovation intermediaries are attributed as brokers, matchmakers or facilitators to solve the market failure similar to job, marriage or housing markets. It still remains a challenge to find a suitable partner for innovation. Therefore, the problem of matchmaking for open innovation is explored in this dissertation. Based on an exploratory action research approach, I was engaged in industrial and academic projects where new ideas, external technologies and new start-up ventures were searched and matched for open innovation projects. With my work, I contribute to the interdisciplinary field of network economics and to open innovation as managerial paradigm. Practical implications are presented for innovation intermediaries, managers and entrepreneurs. In my thesis it is shown that matchmaking for open innovation requires a multi-sided market perspective. This offers a new conceptual lens as hybrid form between organizational hierarchies and external markets for innovation – as networked market setting. My work elaborates how innovation intermediaries actively create the market, coordinate the matching process and ensure tie building in networks. I suggest a shift from matchmaking as pure transaction-based market mechanisms towards interactive mechanisms over time through which economic value emerges as long-term impact for all market agents.

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Supervisor(s): Prof. Dr. Bernhard Katzy (Leiden Universtiy / The Netherlands), Prof. Dr. Klaus Sailer (Munich University of Applied Sciences / Germany)

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