This paper reports experimental results on open innovation in which free-riding, efficiency and spillover depend on the ability to affect the number of innovation contributors, and the modularity of the innovation task. This paper provides a tractable laboratory setting that relaxes the restrictive assumption of the theoretical literature that costs of development are independent across individuals. We have induced more distributed problem solving and spillover of knowledge when the process is more non-modular. When efficiency is measured as the percentage of profits made over maximum profits, small groups were more efficient than large groups in the non-modular production environment and efficiency was higher in the modular production environment irrespective of group size. Significantly, there was a higher percentage of spillover in the non-modular production environment, especially for large groups.

本文报告了开放式创新的实验结果，其中搭便车、效率和溢出取决于影响创新贡献者数量的能力，以及创新任务的模块化。本文提供了一个易于处理的实验室环境，它放宽了理论文献的限制性假设，即开发成本在个体之间是独立的。当过程更加非模块化时，我们引入了更多的分布式问题解决和知识溢出。当效率被衡量为利润占最大利润的百分比时，在非模块化生产环境中，小团体比大团体更有效率，而无论团体规模如何，模块化生产环境中的效率都更高。显着地，