How French Wine Producers Use Open Innovation to Gain and Manage Their Legitimacy
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How French Wine Producers Use Open Innovation to Gain and Manage Their Legitimacy Sylvaine Castellano 1 & Insaf Khelladi 2
Received: 16 October 2015 / Accepted: 29 October 2015 / Published online: 7 November 2015 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract While open innovation and legitimacy are two processes that redefine the boundaries between the firm and its surrounding environment, no study has so far bridged the gap between these two concepts. Herein, we analyze how innovation strategies on the continuum between closed and open innovations confer different types of legitimacy. Our empirical setting focuses on traditional industries characterized with long and established know-how transferred from generation to generation. The wine industry is pertinent as it went through major changes over the past 30 years and since innovation plays a major role. Over time, our results show that in the wine sector, closed innovation was used not only to gain legitimacy but also to protect the acquired legitimacy. Then, open innovation brought normative and cognitive legitimacy to maintain and protect legitimacy. The findings contribute to the neo-institutional approach of legitimacy. We also contribute on a better understanding regarding the balance between closed and open innovations. Keywords Open innovation . Legitimacy . Wine appellation
Introduction and Aim The history of the wine industry includes many innovations, from grape growing to wine making. Throughout the evolution of wine making, most innovations were shared through the institutionalization of practices. Wine producers and other participants of this industry, such as individuals from diverse religious orders, collaborated to establish their legitimacy as a means to foster the quality of their wine. Although open innova-
* Sylvaine Castellano [email protected] Insaf Khelladi [email protected] 1
Paris School of Business - Chaire NewPic, 59 Rue Nationale, 75013 Paris, France
2
ICN Business School, 13 Rue Michel Ney, 54000 Nancy, France
156
J Knowl Econ (2016) 7:155–171
tion was not involved in the establishment of different wine regions, producers from other regions either used a closed innovation approach or used open innovation for other purposes. In the present study, we address the concept of open innovation in the context of traditional industries. From an open innovation perspective, ideas that originate outside the firm’s boundaries are brought inside for commercialization. Wine appellations are of particular interest because firms decide to engage in open innovation networks as a means to benefit from the innovations that are created by other participants in this industry. Bridging the gap between (1) closed/open innovation and (2) legitimacy processes redefines the boundary between the firm and its surrounding environment. As mentioned by Kostova and Zaheer (1999), the Bdifferent types of legitimacy reflect the different types of institutions operating in the environment.^ The link between legitimacy and open innovatio
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