Open innovation: so far and a way forward

Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify strategic and tactical factors that are crucial to explore, in future, to get insight into the open innovation spectrum. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on literature review. To explore progress and future needs of open innovation studies, various contributory papers have been consulted and analyzed. Findings – Definition of open innovation is yet to be clear‐cut. What open innovation is and what it is not, is still being debated. Moreover, open innovation overlaps other concepts such as user generation, crowdsourcing, and distributed innovation. Even though research on open innovation has significantly grown, there are still many issues that need to be addressed to get insight about open innovation in various contexts. Studies are mostly performed in the context of large firms and in developed countries. Research in the context of developing countries is still almost an untouched area. Open innovation in the small to medium‐sized enterprises' (SMEs') context has gained a foothold just recently. It is crucial to explore some managerial challenges, such as technology transfer, inbound and outbound process, absorptive and desorptive capacity development, particularly in the global open innovation context and it is essential to investigate how open innovation can be implemented for sustainable development. Originality/value – This study is one of the few, if not only one, that has reviewed the trend of open innovation research and its practical implementation. Both researchers and practitioners will get a snapshot of open innovation and its growing necessity in the business world. Some issues have been highlighted, so that future study can be focused in those directions.