Open Innovation Adoption in Emerging Economies: A Qualitative Exploration of Practices, Enablers and Barriers in the Turkish Ecosystem

Abstract

This study investigates Open Innovation (OI) adoption in emerging economies, specifically examining how firms strategically leverage external knowledge sources to enhance their innovation capabilities. Employing a qualitative exploratory methodology, the research involves semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted with innovation managers from four prominent Turkish firms, selected for their recognized innovation capabilities and strategic importance within Türkiye’s dynamic innovation ecosystem. The findings highlight a pronounced strategic emphasis on inbound Open Innovation activities, predominantly executed through partnerships with startups, academic institutions, and external technology providers. Among these collaborative forms, structured startup programs emerge as the most frequently utilized and strategically significant, driven by firms' imperative to rapidly respond to evolving market demands and sustain their competitive agility. Key organizational enablers identified include robust senior managerial commitment, well-defined and structured innovation management processes, and a deeply embedded innovation-oriented organizational culture. Conversely, the study identifies critical barriers, such as cultural resistance towards external collaboration (the Not-Invented-Here syndrome), concerns regarding intellectual property management, and significant limitations related to financial and human resources. Theoretically, this research contributes significantly to existing Open Innovation frameworks by explicitly integrating the distinctive institutional, cultural, and resource-based dynamics characterizing emerging economies, aspects that have received limited attention in previous studies. In doing so, it emphasizes the need to refine and expand Open Innovation theories to more accurately reflect contextual influences and strategic adaptations inherent in emerging market settings. This approach enriches the theoretical discourse on innovation management by providing nuanced insights into how context-specific factors uniquely shape Open Innovation processes and practices. From these empirical results, the study concludes that successful Open Innovation adoption within emerging economies requires deliberate managerial efforts to address internal cultural resistance and proactively manage resource constraints, particularly through strategic alignment with agile external partners such as startups and academic institutions. Additionally, fostering an organizational environment characterized by openness, flexibility, and structured innovation processes significantly enhances firms' capacity to exploit external knowledge effectively. Implications for further research include expanding the analysis through comparative studies across multiple emerging economies to better understand cross-contextual dynamics and integrating longitudinal methodologies to explore the evolution of Open Innovation practices over time. Practically, the findings offer clear, actionable recommendations for innovation managers, entrepreneurs, organizational leaders, and policymakers, guiding strategic decision-making, effective partnership management, and resource allocation to foster sustainable competitive advantage and growth in rapidly evolving innovation ecosystems.