Open Innovation (OI) opens a company’s innovation process towards its environment. This allows advantages, such as better market orientation, the utilization of external expertise or the exploitation of new markets. However, the success of an OI-project is directly linked to the selection of appropriate actors. It is important to choose actors who can contribute to an issue and it is also crucial not to forget actors important to the success of the OI-project. So far the selection of appropriate project actors is still challenging for many companies. Adequate methodological support is limited and existing OI-specific selection processes bear several deficits. Therefore, our goal is the elaboration of an OI-specific integrated selection approach combining stakeholder-analysis with identification methods of the Lead-User-approach. This work sets the basis by analysing and comparing different stakeholder-analysis processes and Lead-User identification, as well as systematically developing a requirement list for an OI-specific identification and selection process.     «

Open Innovation (OI) opens a company’s innovation process towards its environment. This allows advantages, such as better market orientation, the utilization of external expertise or the exploitation of new markets. However, the success of an OI-project is directly linked to the selection of appropriate actors. It is important to choose actors who can contribute to an issue and it is also crucial not to forget actors important to the success of the OI-project. So far the selection of appropriate...     »