IT impact on open innovation performance: Insights from a large-scale empirical investigation

Motivated by prior inconclusive findings on the effectiveness of open innovation initiatives in generating business value and the complexity of open innovation, this study draws on the IT-enabled organizational capabilities perspective to propose that the mobilization of Information Technology (IT) resources can positively affect the development of open innovation initiatives and, in turn, improve firms' open innovation performance. Our empirical analysis of >1100 large Spanish firms confirms that firms' IT resource investments positively impact the development and execution of open innovation initiatives, which in turn improves firms' open innovation performance in terms of product and process innovations. This research contributes to the business value of IT and to Information Systems (IS) research on open innovation by evidencing the enabling role of IT investment in achieving open innovation performance gains.