How open innovation strategy is reflected in the firms R&D efficiency DEA ranking?

Open innovation model, which refers to the use of external technology and environment, has boosted the technology developing speed to a large extent. The term “Open Innovation” was launched by Chesbrough. In open innovation model, firms utilize a wide range of both internal & external sources and channels to commercialize their ideas. Technology market is complicated. Therefore, open innovation is not a single, unique strategy. There are many different moves and approaches that can all lead to firm's success in innovation competition. Previous studies have done in this field were usually in qualitative way. In this paper, we are aiming to study open innovation approach with a qualitative method, Data Envelopment Analysis. 18 companies, which are recognized as pioneers in open innovation, have been selected in our study for R&D efficiency evaluating and open innovation strategy discussion. Since R&D efficiency is always a key part of innovation process, the objective of this paper is to analyze how company's choice in open innovation strategy model will influence its R&D efficiency DEA ranking, and how its R&D efficiency at different stages can be aligned with its open innovation strategy.