Purpose

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive view of the different competition-based approaches that policymakers can exploit to foster external knowledge search and their positioning among innovation policy measures. A growing number of companies have implemented initiatives to access external knowledge to increase their innovativeness, consistently with the open innovation paradigm. Competition-based approaches have received increasing attention by the private sector as a way to access external knowledge. However, despite their potential role as innovation policy measures, a limited attention has been devoted so far to investigate them from the policymakers’ perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

To this aim, a two-stage empirical analysis has been carried out to develop a taxonomy of competition-based approaches. The first stage leveraged a multiple case study methodology including a sample of 20 competition-based approaches, while the second one leveraged interviews with Italian and European key informants.

Findings

This paper proposes a novel taxonomy including eight competition-based approaches, which differ among each other in terms of policy strategy, scope breadth and output required. Moreover, this paper enriches a well-established taxonomy of innovation policy instruments with the identified competition-based approaches.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the current debate on innovation policy by providing a taxonomy that includes eight competition-based approaches that can be exploited by policymakers to foster external knowledge search as well as their positioning among the innovation policy instruments. The taxonomy will hopefully support policymakers in identifying of the most suitable instruments in the light of their policy strategy and objectives.

中文翻译：

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基于竞争的方法分类作为促进外部知识搜索的创新政策措施

目的

本文旨在全面了解政策制定者可以用来促进外部知识搜索的不同基于竞争的方法及其在创新政策措施中的定位。越来越多的公司已经实施了获取外部知识的举措，以提高他们的创新能力，与开放式创新范式保持一致。作为获取外部知识的一种方式，基于竞争的方法越来越受到私营部门的关注。然而，尽管它们具有作为创新政策措施的潜在作用，但迄今为止从政策制定者的角度对它们进行调查的注意力有限。

设计/方法/途径

为此，进行了两阶段的实证分析，以制定基于竞争的方法的分类法。第一阶段利用了多案例研究方法，包括 20 种基于竞争的方法样本，而第二阶段则利用了对意大利和欧洲关键线人的采访。

发现

本文提出了一种新的分类法，包括八种基于竞争的方法，它们在政策策略、范围广度和所需产出方面各不相同。此外，本文通过确定的基于竞争的方法丰富了创新政策工具的完善分类。

原创性/价值

本研究通过提供包括八种基于竞争的方法的分类法来促进当前关于创新政策的辩论，决策者可以利用这些方法来促进外部知识搜索以及它们在创新政策工具中的定位。该分类法有望支持政策制定者根据其政策战略和目标确定最合适的工具。