Abstract
Digital transformation has undoubtedly become a key enabler of innovation as evidenced by the numerous firms that use digital technologies to manage their innovation processes. This issue is even more relevant today when innovation processes have become more open and require greater resources and capabilities in the different implementation phases to capture and transfer knowledge within and outside the firm’s boundaries. This implies additional challenges in managing the increasing amount of knowledge and information flows. Digital technologies can be used and implemented to manage open innovation processes through easier access and sharing the knowledge created and transferred. Nevertheless, literature in these fields does not provide a structured view of how and why digital technologies are used to manage innovation processes in an open perspective. This paper aims to bridge this gap by adopting a capabilities perspective to identify the recurrent patterns of actions ensuing from and enabling the use and implementation of digital technologies in open innovation processes. The paper investigates how and why digital technologies help firms develop and nurture these capabilities over time. From an empirical point of view, the exploratory multiple case study analyses ten firms operating in different industries and varying in size, market share and organizational structure. The outcome of this study is a framework that illustrates the enabling and enabled capabilities deriving from the use and implementation of digital technologies in open innovation processes.