Public Defence of Erika Tauraitė-Kavai Doctoral Dissertation

Erika Tauraitė-Kavai  Doctoral Dissertation  “WORKING WITH INBOUND KNOWLEDGE IN OPEN INNOVATION: DEALING WITH NOT KNOWING” was successfully defended on the 31st of August. Supervisor: Prof. dr. Aldas Kriaučiūnas (Purdue University, U.S.A., Social Sciences, Management, S003) Co-supervisors: Soc. prof. dr. Irina Liubertė (ISM University of Management and Economics, Social Sciences, Management, S 003); Prof. dr. Vilma Žydžiūnaitė (Vytautas Magnus University, Social Sciences, Management, Education, S 007) About Doctoral Dissertation: Innovations are widely recognised as the fuel of technological and social change and are extensively studied yet not thoroughly understood. The dissertation reveals new pattern in open innovation (OI) process of high technology developing teams which is based on dealing with not knowing as well as discloses team-level inbound knowledge practices. The research was designed as an empirical qualitative inductive study using case study and constructivist grounded theory methodology for data collection and analysis. Two Lithuanian hi-tech firms’ innovation teams at work were observed in the natural settings. The results of the study show that the innovation teams while developing technological innovation constantly face the unknowns and to deal with them teams engage into a pattern of dealing with not knowing though which new to the team external knowledge is gained. The research also revealed the conflict of motivations towards action on unknowns in the firms, where management predominantly wanted to minimise them, while innovation teams were motivated and often proactively chose to deal with not knowing. This conflicting motivation as well as the role of dealing with not-knowing were not previously theoretically discussed in innovation literature. The study invites to extend OI models the pattern of dealing with not knowing as a process of inbound knowledge flow. Defense board members Chairperson:Prof. dr. Ilona Bučiūnienė (ISM University of Management and Economics, Social Sciences, Management – S 003)Members:Prof. dr. Jannis Angelis (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, Social Sciences, Management – S 003)Prof. dr. Giedrius Jucevičius (Vytautas Magnus University, Social Sciences, Management – S 003)Prof. dr. Vida Škudienė (ISM University of Management and Economics, Management – S 003) Annotation The dissertation is available at the Martynas Mažvydas National library and library of ISM University of Management and Economics.