A Study on the Impact Factors of Open Innovation Performance According to the First-mover Companies and the Follower Companies

선도기업과 후발기업에 따른 개방형 혁신활동이 기업성과에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

There have been many studies that open innovation activities have positive effects on firm performance. However, the previous studies have shown conflicting results, depending on the characteristics of companies or the timing of the product launch. This study empirically compares open innovation performance of first-mover companies and follower companies. The analyses are performed on the samples of the Korean Innovation Survey 2010 companies that explored external information and performed R&D cooperation. The results indicate that open innovation activities can have different effects depending on a company's status in the market. For the first-mover companies, the intensity of utilizing external information has greater impact on the firm's performance than the diversity of it. By contrast, for the follower companies, the diversity of utilizing external information has greater impact on the firm's performance than the intensity of it. In terms of R&D cooperation, the external cooperation is found not to have significant effects on a first-mover company's performance. However, external R&D cooperation of a follower company is showing positive impact on the firm's performance. The implication of the study is to analyze the firm's Open-Innovation performance by comparing first-mover companies with follower companies. Therefore, companies need to execute the Open-Innovation strategy by considering firm characteristics or the timing of the product launch.