University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

Results
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It is new to accept and implement the non-market acquirements of various users and
stakeholders in their strategies and action patterns and to have transparent user and
stakeholder communication for many companies. There are some relations between
sustainable learning conditions, open innovation and CR activities. The following
results point out the compared case study results and highlight the fact that the use of
OIM cannot be described by unique dominant influencing factors because it is a
dynamic interaction of diverse effects.
• Values and norms: All six companies covered by this research were characterised
by their willingness to: (1) take stakeholder demands seriously, (2) address
central public issues and concerns, (3) provide constructive answers to these
challenges. They tended to be more transparent and open-minded than other
companies in the same business field. Irrespective of CR issues, using OIM
seemed to be a good alternative to common marketing instruments, esp. for the
food company and the transportation companies. The housing companies saw the
social dimension as being as important as the environmental dimension of
sustainability due to their historical development and the managers’ vision. Thus,
OIM would be a good opportunity to check the stakeholders’ requirements and
further CR activities. A common theme across all six companies studied was that,
while most sustainability-related values and norms were established at the top of
the organisation, these top-down guidelines did not preclude bottom-up
sustainability-related initiatives from emerging. However, the companies’
decisions to use OIM for integrating more sustainability or developing more CR
were taken by the top management. CR values or sustainability norms are not
directly connected with the willingness to use open innovation methods. Using
OIM to bring CR issues into more practice is mainly dependent on the corporate
openness and culture.
• Knowledge transfer: The importance of internal networks was highlighted in
particular by the large and small transport company and the housing companies,
all of which noted that many CR activities were driven by a network of change
agents and employees concerned with CR issues. These networks were used as a
platform for the dissemination of new concepts, technologies and ideas, thereby
allowing higher levels of learning to emerge. Thus, OIM are used to implement
sustainability, new knowledge, experiences and capabilities into the organisation
(also see Ernst & Kohn 2007) and to strengthen the customers’ view or the
commitment to service. So, missing organisational knowledge transfer can be a
motive to use OIM for improving it, and to add missing information or good
knowledge transfer can be the reasons for improving product and service
development by using OIM.
• Stakeholder requirements: stakeholder demands make the use of OIM easier. The
level of stakeholder integration and interaction depend on the company’s
situation, its spirit and purpose as well as the problems to be solved, the risks and
the aimed results (Green & Hunton-Clarke 2003). Making target-oriented
decisions before starting an interactive process, companies reflect their
expectations and their reasons when using open innovation methods. The