Critical Consideration Factors Analysis for Open Innovation Implementation: An Empirical Study in a Semiconductor Manufacturer

Abstract

Traditionally, industrial firms conducted innovation strategies for their own products internally. In recent decades, these strategies have begun to change as firms across industries acquire external technologies to extend their knowledge base, which strengthens the firms' competitive advantages. Despite its growing importance, achieving a successful implementation of open innovation is not an easy task. To this end, this study constructs a decision framework by identifying a comprehensive set of consideration factors of implementing open innovation and groups these factors into an extensive Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) structure. To further rank the importance of these consideration factors, this study employed the method of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) by surveying a group of experts who have implemented the Open Innovation Platform (OIP®) in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the largest semiconductor contracted manufacturer in the world. In 2008, TSMC launched the OIP® as an industrywide design enablement initiative. To date, the OIP® has allowed the entire semiconductor industry accelerate time-to-market, improve return on design investment and reduce design infrastructure duplication. The contribution of this study lies in not only its providing a structured and comprehensive list of critical consideration factors but also illustrating the application of those critical factors by examples.