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Does Open
Innovation Work in a Downturn?
Our study of Open
Innovation in the
Centro Ricerche FIAT
will appear on the Spring Issue of the
California Management
Review
In a recent contribution on
Harvard Business Review, Henry Chesbrough argues that the ideas
behind Open Innovation are "recession-proof". We support Hank's
ideas, bringing back from the 1990s the application of Open Innovation
in the Centro Ricerche FIAT.
Our article titled "FIAT
Open Innovation in a Downturn" features a review of the reforms that
started to take place in Orbassano in 1992. Ideas that can be easily
traced back to Hank's Open Innovation paradigm were applied by CRF's
management with great success.
We decided to work on this
paper almost one year ago, as many started to write and comment on the
latest success of FIAT and the superiority of its technology.. starting
with well.. President Obama:
"Fiat has demonstrated that it
can build the clean, fuel-efficient cars that are the future of the
industry" President Barack Obama: Washington DC, April 30th 2009
CRF's technologies featured
also on the cover of the Italian edition of the
Magazine Wired, which emphasized the role of:
"The knights that were able to
save FIAT and to buy America with three patents, while dreaming an
engine with (almost) zero emissions"
Riccardo Luna, Wired Magazine, January 2010
Our contribution offers
scholars a documented analysis on how Open Innovation was applied and
worked out during a deep downturn: we studied and commented for our
readers very interesting details of CRF's strategy during the 90s.
Also, we think that our work can offer a contribution to explain the
success of a turnaround orchestrated by CEO Marchionne in more recent
times, whose philosophy was summarized in another article on HBR:
"Being a leader at FIAT is a
lifestyle decision. It's not the Buena Vista Social Club! Most of the
management meetings are held on weekends.."
Sergio Marchionne, "Fiat's extreme makeover"
Harvard Business Review ,
December 2008
Andrea, Federico and I are in debt to Gian Carlo Michellone, Paolo Dondo,
Sergio Imperiale, Massimo Casali and Nevio Di Giusto for their priceless
help and patience in walking us behind the scenes of CRF. Special thanks
go to Henry Chesbrough, Vittorio Chiesa, Fabrizio Cesaroni, Stephen
Cohen, and Alexander Stern for their comments on earlier versions of the
article. And obviously.. the authors are grateful to two anonymous CMR
reviewers for their insightful suggestions.
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