Convergence and Reorientation via Open Innovation Networks: The Emergence of Nutraceuticals

The use of networked organizational arrangements to conduct exchanges is one of the most distinctive features of high-tech research intensive industries. Advances in biotechnology and genomics research have enabled a generic technology platform that has fuelled a more 'open' approach to innovation and learning. This relies on collaborations between networked partners and allows for the convergence and reorientation of traditional sectors. This paper lends support to the view that some technologies can trigger a higher system level innovation, that is, in addition to the inter-firm level, an inter-industrial and inter-institutional level convergence and re-orientation process. This paper explores how this phenomenon is being witnessed in the pharmaceutical and food sectors and fast becoming a dominant logic in the emerging nutraceuticals industry.