Abstract

Organizations have developed open innovation practices to promote innovation ecosystems and to leverage their own knowledge and data-based resources. By using case examples on Nokia Open Innovation practices, we describe different perspectives on how a small firm, startup and/or techno-entrepreneur can create and capture value in the context of an innovation ecosystem. Ecosystem members can adopt different forms of collaboration to develop innovations by sharing capabilities, knowledge and data. A virtuous circle of growth and profitability can be realized in an innovation ecosystem where startups and larger companies complement their capabilities through collaboration. Based on the case examples we examine models of collaboration in an innovation ecosystem. These examples describe how a linkage with a keystone company can help startups and techno-entrepreneurs overcome typical challenges and accelerate their commercialization process via knowledge creation and data utilization.