In a recent blogpost, Nico Macdonald emphazies that Chesbrough is painting a black and white picture, by contrasting the old, closed innovation model with the new, open innovation model.
He uses some examples from the Palo Alto region, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to state that "In reality, the closed innovation model has never really existed...". According to Nico, companies have used technology insourcing and outsourcing already 30 years ago. Hence, Open Innovation is not a new phenomenon. And even if open innovation exists now, this doesn't necessarily mean that closed innovation existed.
Black- and white painting
On the one hand, I can follow Nico's argumentation. Obviously, Chesbrough is exaggerating and painting a black-white picture. But on the other hand, this is just the way how book publishing works: Observere a random socio-political trend, evaluate the basic structures by black-white thinking and then publish a book and get ritch.
Does it have an influence on Open Innovation?
No, I don't think so. Open Innovation is a global trend, which may started decades before. Chesbrough didn't say that open innovation practices didnt exist 30 years ago. But these where just some single companies which used in- and outsourcing of innovation. Today most companies use some form of open innovation.
The key question is, if innovation management is significantly different from innovation management 30 years ago (e.g. beginning of 80's). And from a global perspective: Yes, it is! Consequently, it is legitimate to call these two different innovation models the "closed" and the "open" innovation model.
