Abstract
In business environments characterized by technological change and rapid imitation, firms must continually innovate and identify new opportunities in order to remain competitive. This study investigates how external actors provide firms with innovative opportunities, ideas, and solutions. Specifically, it examines how firms are influenced by being approached by external innovators who “pitch” ideas for new products that they want to commercialize in cooperation with the firm. Conceptually, the study analyzes firms as magnets to which ideas and resources from outside the firm are attracted.Employing a multiple case study design of Swedish and U.S.companies, the thesis reveals that a firm’s capacity for innovation and exploration of new opportunities is partly shaped by its ability to attract ideas and inventions from the outside environment. It also demonstrates that firms that are particularly attractive to external innovators are in a favorable position to identify and act on strategic opportunities and threats that emerge in their competitive environments. The findings of the study suggest that in order to support their innovation and strategy creation processes, firms should work to stimulate inflows of externally developed ideas and inventions. This involves building a reputation of being trustworthy and receptive to external ideas, as well as broadcasting innovation projects and strategies so that external actors can easily understand how their ideas and inventions might fit in to the firm’s innovation projects and strategies.