THE ORIGINS OF OPEN INNOVATION: A Historical and Critical Reconstruction

This paper offers a critical historical analysis of the intellectual and institutional precursors to the open innovation paradigm. Challenging the perception of open innovation as a radical departure from earlier models, the paper demonstrates that many of its core principles—such as external collaboration, absorptive capacity, and distributed knowledge flows—have deep roots in 20th-century innovation practices and theories. Through an extensive review of foundational literature in innovation studies, strategic management, and organizational learning, this extended paper traces how ideas of inter-firm cooperation, technological brokering, and institutional embeddedness shaped current open innovation frameworks. Emphasis is placed on the path-dependent nature of absorptive capacity, the strategic management of complementary assets, and the evolution of innovation networks. By revisiting contributions from Mowery, Teece, Cohen and Levinthal, March, Hagedoorn, Powell, and others, the study repositions open innovation within a broader intellectual trajectory, offering a more nuanced understanding of its origins and limitations.