Open Innovation and its definitions

Ever since the introduction of Open Innovation as a concept over 13 years ago, it has been debated heavily. Most of the debate has been on the openness itself, such as Open Innovation versus Open Source. Other have discussed it as an old phenomena and that it is not new or changed enough to be able to call it a new paradigm, the aim in this paper is to lift the discussion to a more theoretical area. This literature review shows the different definitions used and is analyzed in how they all relate to the development of the field of Open Innovation, with the help of texts from Kuhn and Wittgenstein, amongst other philosophers. The results show that it is important to have a definition that can evolve by being challenged instead of being destroyed by competing definitions. It is also suggested to let the definition build upon the criteria that has been used and can be measured in empirical data. As an example a sliding scale is used instead of the common binary definitions