When Culture Stops Open Innovation
It took me a while to figure out why Danish companies are so slow at embracing open innovation and I found the answer in an unlikely place. German and Chinese people working with innovation in Denmark told me that they had a hard time getting to know Danes.
As the societal culture spills over to the corporate culture in Danish companies, it became quite clear to me why Danes are slow at embracing open innovation. Danes are world class at collaboration – as long as they collaborate with partners they already know and trust.
The thing is that it takes months or even years to really get to know your business partners and you simply do not have this luxury with open innovation. After all, the key benefit of open innovation is speed. Danish companies still want to feel out their potential partners for a longer period of time and thus they lose out on interesting opportunities.
At a recent session in Denmark, the participants fully acknowledged the issue so I think there is quite some truth to this.
I find it interesting to observe how societal as well as corporate culture can stop or at least slow down the open innovation movement and I wonder what other examples of this looks like.
Some say that many Asian companies are slow adaptors of open innovation because of their specific approaches to networking and business alliances (think guanxi in China or keiretsu in Japan). It also seems as if both Asian and Brazilian (South American) employees have difficulties challenging their superiors and thus trying to do things differently. On the other hand, Americans are very direct when it comes to business. This seems to be an advantage in the context of open innovation.
What do you think? Can you share any perspective on the intersection of culture (country as well as corporate) and open innovation?
Stefan – Excellent observation. To build on your point I've found that many US, Canadian, UK, and Dutch companies emphasize the potential opportunity created by a partnership to a larger degree than the risk associated with getting involved with a new partner. Having negotiated with a Danish company I know that we spent a lot of time focused on the risk side. Obviously this is an important part of a negotiation but it does tend to set a tone for the partnership when there is so much emphasis placed on the 'divorce' clauses. As you point out this probably comes from elements of the societal culture, so if you are dealing with a company that is based in country X, and all of the senior execs are from that country, then you should expect to deal with those cultural norms. However, I have observed that these effects are minimized to some degree in multi-national companies that routinely move employees at all levels around the world.
Hi Tim, thanks for your input! I am quite happy to hear you share this personal experience. We need companies to see opportunities rather than risks first when it come to open innovation.
Stefan I agree with you on this one. open innovation can become stifled as a result of a company or regions culture behind networking and trust. but i feel that US could embrace open innovation more as IP and secrecy issues still remains a barrier within the states
I think that open innovation conflicts with "who has the patent for what" and the freedom-to-operate, when it comes to novel technology. Besides the strict ITAR and that textbooks and patents needs clearance from the pentagon before publishing to europe i think that the Americans in general are very close with new ideas, and i see a general american working moral where they at first glance tell the basic ideas openminded, but keep the deeper know how and tricks to them self as secrets, in order to profit them self on a personal level. This is also why Danish design and technology are higher quality and stepping ahead. We simply has a protective law system keeping oher companies from patenting things that they didn't invent themselves.
On Linkedin forums I see a lack of will to share details in new ideas or even problem solving issues, and I also see a conflict with the patents of US, where almost everything is protected vs. none in Denmark. Should a US company then share new ideas? – i think not.
I appreciate your perspective. However, I think that companies that are serious about open innovation can fairly easy get around the IPR issues so this should not be too big a concern. On LinkedIn, I don't think it is that smart to openly share and co-develop ideas. This has to be done in more private setting.
Thanks Stefan for this very interesting article. I agree that culture can influence corporate culture and the outcome of a collaboration(s). Yet one needs to ensure that for "Open Innovation" to work as envisaged, it needs to operate in a trully "open" framework/environment with commonly agreed and accepted rules that can foster "Open Innovation", protect it, recognise it and propagate it! What do you think?
Sounds good to me
Shouldn't the culture be set by the top executives regardless of where you are in the world. If the CEO and top executives promoted open innovation and led by example surely the rest of the business will begin to follow this set culture?? Or do you believe that a countries culture can dictate over an internal working culture? I am not so sure.
I don't think the top executives can change much about the existing culture – at least not in the short term – and many top executives focus more on the short-term than the long-term anyways. One way to make an impact is as you say to lead by example. I believe that the right corporate approach can trump a country culture, but unfortunately not all companies follow a proper approach.
I think East Asia is becoming a lot more open to innovation. In order to stay competitive in global markets, they have to adapt.
Even within the confines of more Confucian office cultures, change is possible.
I think that a country's culture will always dominate over a company culture because it is strongley rooted and reflected in the behaviour of the employees. Even if the CEO and top managment put Open Innovation on their priority list and generally believe in the concept I realized that only very few and internationally experienced manager are able to overcome the barriers set by their own cultural background.
I can recommend the following article by Marcos Gómez on this topic "Importing Innovation Practices: Challenge for Employee Creativity Behaviour (ECB) in its National Context"
Dear all
this is a so interesting topic ! Thanks also for the paper recommendation. Unfortunately I can not download it.
I woild like to learn more about (country or region) cultural differences in innovation, not only open innovtion. I heard that for example in Japan it might be a problem when a more junior scientist is proposing an idea…
Is it like this ß
Does anybody have mor information about differences in regions ?
Thank you very much in advance
Peter
[...] Lindegaard, Stefan. “When Culture Stops Open Innovation.” 15inno. February 1, 2013. http://www.15inno.com/2013/02/01/culturestopsoi/. [...]