Reducing the fuzziness of Open Organization, finding a better definition

Open Innovation has been researched for over a decade after Henry Chesbrough gave the thought-provoking impulse of designing company boundaries as permeable for knowledge streams (Chesbrough, 2003). Yet, studies have discovered that Open Innovation results remain unsatisfactory for companies due to missing organizational structures that are meant to absorb OI knowledge generated through OI measures (Chesbrough & Brunswicker, 2013). Further research confirms that Open Innovation cannot prosper in closed structures (Tushman et al., 2012). One promising approach is Foster's (2011) concept of the Open Organization. Even though a broad definition for this concept exists, the characteristics of an Open Organization remain somewhat nebulous. By looking at the transformation process from Closed Innovation to Open Innovation and adapting the defined operators on organizational structures and processes the characteristics of an Open Organization can be deduced. Following this approach, this paper contributes into the clarification of the definition of an Open Organization.