The mixed blessings of openness in creative industries? The case of European chefs de cuisine

Conference Paper
Academy of Management Proceedings 2013(1), 16637
Authors

Andreas Braun

Christoph Ihl

Published

January 1, 2013

Doi

10.5465/ambpp.2013.16637abstract

Abstract
Previous open innovation research has mostly focused on firm-level investigations of inbound and outbound activities to generate and commercialize technological innovation in R&D intensive industries. With this study, we want to complement research on ideation and innovation in creative industries, where output is largely determined by the ingenious creativity of individuals and success ultimately is determined by subjective evaluations of different audiences. Our empirical study is based on a survey of 505 chefs de cuisine from 16 European countries. We draw on improvisational bricolage as well as institutional theories of market identity, legitimacy, and reputation to hypothesize the impact of inbound openness on product renewal among critics and customers. Consistent with an improvisational bricolage logic, we find that openness only fosters product renewal for restaurants with frequent menu updates. Furthermore, very high levels of inbound openness allows chefs to embrace multiple, dissonant business objectives. However, inbound openness tends to generate negative evaluations on both critics and customers because diverse borrowing of ideas seems to blur chefs’ crafting authenticity. At the same time, outbound openness, i.e. advertising and commercializing through books, media appearances and courses, may help chefs (re-)gain some legitimacy for recombinant craftsmanship and novel recipes.

Research

© Anne Gärtner

  • Conference Paper
  • 2013
  • Vol. 2013(1)
  • DOI

Authors

Andreas Braun, Christoph Ihl

Abstract

Previous open innovation research has mostly focused on firm-level investigations of inbound and outbound activities to generate and commercialize technological innovation in R&D intensive industries. With this study, we want to complement research on ideation and innovation in creative industries, where output is largely determined by the ingenious creativity of individuals and success ultimately is determined by subjective evaluations of different audiences. Our empirical study is based on a survey of 505 chefs de cuisine from 16 European countries. We draw on improvisational bricolage as well as institutional theories of market identity, legitimacy, and reputation to hypothesize the impact of inbound openness on product renewal among critics and customers. Consistent with an improvisational bricolage logic, we find that openness only fosters product renewal for restaurants with frequent menu updates. Furthermore, very high levels of inbound openness allows chefs to embrace multiple, dissonant business objectives. However, inbound openness tends to generate negative evaluations on both critics and customers because diverse borrowing of ideas seems to blur chefs’ crafting authenticity. At the same time, outbound openness, i.e. advertising and commercializing through books, media appearances and courses, may help chefs (re-)gain some legitimacy for recombinant craftsmanship and novel recipes.

Tags

Creative Industries Openness Gastronomy