Enabling Open Innovation Process Through Interactive Methods : Scenarios and Group Decision Support Systems

To be able to utilise opportunities in a radically changing business environment, various organisations are transforming their practices towards open innovation processes. Openness does not, however, mean any kind of looseness in innovation management but calls for coordination and facilitation. The challenge for the management in the open innovation process is to find out the appropriate methods and practices for the utilisation of external knowledge resources. One of the first attempts, this study brings two widely utilised innovation management methods – scenarios and the group decision support system (GDSS) – to the open innovation context and suggests guidelines for the management of the open innovation process in an inter-organisational context