The role of integration mechanism in open innovation team: An exploratory study on cross-field student team contests

Open innovation has received considerable attention in the practical business domain, as it can help companies to increase their abilities to produce either incremental or radical innovations. Due to the open nature of this approach, there is a lack of formal structure and thus a need for an integration mechanism to motivate the participants to collaborate productively. This study examines such constructs as team vision, commitment, and self-efficacy, which might drive cross-field teammates to contribute their efforts to innovation projects. The aim is to explore how the participants' varied abilities can be integrated in open innovation student teams. A questionnaire survey of 159 respondents was conducted using purposive sampling focusing on six major open innovation contests in Taiwan. The results show that team vision, commitment, and self-efficacy only partially mediate the integration mechanism that can be used to integrate the team members' varied abilities in order to achieve more innovative outcomes.