Special Episode: Open Innovation in mittelständischen Unternehmen
Christian Mohr is executive management board member and
managing partner at UnternehmerTUM, the leading center for
innovation and business creation in Germany. In this special
episode we talked about middle-sized/ family owned companies and
how different they deal with open innovation in comparison to
bigger companies and start-ups.
Some family lead and middle-sized companies have been in business
for decades and went quite well with their strategy. Through
Corona though many were forced to rethink their business model
and started to use digitalization and in some cases even
broadened their way of thinking outside the firm's boundaries,
hence use open innovation.
These companies have also a different and more down to earth set
of values, which is deeply rooted in tradition and a sense of
responsibility towards employees, who have been working in these
companies for years and sometimes even generations. These values
can sometimes hinder open innovation in terms of the willingness
to try new things and take a risk, but can on the other hand be
very helpful. Through the close connection and the smaller size,
communication and idea generation within the company can be
easier, which is an important factor for open innovation: when
employees feel free to talk about ideas, it directly translates
to the openness of companies to be able to share ideas across the
firms' borders (for more information on that phenomenon read
Human resources management and open innovation: the role of open
innovation mindset by Engelsberger, A., Halvorsen, B., Cavanagh,
J., & Bartram, T., 2021)
One of the biggest problems is, that many of these companies are
scared of change. But in times of climate change, digitalization
etc., this change is unavoidable, which makes these companies
struggle. They are literally caught between tradition and
adapting to their environment. Will they be able to sustain the
close relationship to their employees and values, while adapting
to the challenges of our time?
Christian Mohr on LinkedIn:
linkedin.com/in/christian-mohr-921b56b7
Website UnternehmerTUM: https://bc.unternehmertum.de
Engelsberger, A., Halvorsen, B., Cavanagh, J. and Bartram, T.
(2021), Human resources management and open innovation: the role
of open innovation mindset. Asia Pac J Hum
Resour. https://doi.org/10.1111/1744-7941.12281
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