Open Innovation in Value Chain for Sustainability of Firms

Abstract

This piece serves as the guest editorial of the Special Issue on the 'Open Innovation in Value Chain for Sustainability of Firms'. Firstly, this editorial piece asks whether it is possible for firms to sustain their performance forever. Then, it reviews the popular literature on the value chain. Afterwards, it develops a research framework for open innovation in the value chain, and proposes five ways of open innovation taking place within it. These include user open innovation, customer open innovation, common profit community, together growth community, and inner open innovation. Lastly, this editorial introduces articles from the Special Issue that concentrate on the various open innovation perspectives for firms to achieve sustainability. © 2017 by the authors.