In this article we introduce three concepts from transaction cost economics that have so far remained excluded from the open innovation literature, and that enable us to address the demands in the literature for an explanatory mechanism for closing open innovation: unanticipated disturbances, tolerance zone and interpretations of contracts. First, we argue that threats resulting from unanticipated disturbances are absorbed in a tolerance zone and lead to adaptations in knowledge sharing. Second, we argue that these threats and changes in knowledge sharing at the project level impact the interpretation of the open innovation contract at the firm level. Adopting a contractual perspective, the article contributes to the open innovation literature by explaining the tolerance zone of transitioning between closed and open innovation. We illustrate in a case study on a B2B open innovation project how a threat to value creation leads to a continuation of open innovation, whereas a threat to value capture leads to a closing of open innovation.

在本文中，我们从交易成本经济学中介绍了三个概念，这些概念到目前为止尚未被开放式创新文献所排除，这使我们能够满足文献中对关闭开放式创新的解释性机制的要求：意料之外的干扰，容忍区和解释合同。首先，我们认为，意料之外的干扰所导致的威胁被吸收在容忍区内，并导致知识共享的适应。其次，我们认为项目层面知识共享的这些威胁和变化会影响企业层面开放式创新合同的解释。本文采用契约视角，通过解释封闭式创新与开放式创新之间的过渡容差区域，为开放式创新文献做出了贡献。