Dealing with Not-Knowing in Inbound Open Innovation: A High-Tech Innovation Case

Knowledge and innovation are two inseparable topics in the literature on knowledge management or innovation. Most often, when scholars write about knowledge management, they refer to innovation as the key objective. Some argue that using the knowledge available beyond a firm’s boundaries (open innovation) leads to increased innovativeness, while others talk of the knowledge-creating firm. However, current literature provides us with limited insights on how the innovation team deals with externally developed knowledge or how it comes into the innovation creation process. Managing teamwork innovation endeavours in technology development is challenging since the outcome is often uncertain as well as inputs along that path. This paper attempts to open the backbox of open innovation and suggests that innovating teams entwine externally developed knowledge through the process of dealing with not-knowing.