A Managerial Model for Sustainable Open Innovation in Iranian Industrial Organizations: A Meta-Synthesis Focusing on the Past Decade of Research

Background and Objectives: Over the past decade, open innovation has emerged as an important paradigm in Iranian management and research literature, particularly in response to the growing demand for sustainable industrial development. Unlike traditional and closed innovation models, open innovation encourages the flow of knowledge across organizational boundaries, enabling firms to access external capabilities. Despite the growing popularity of this approach, the academic landscape in Iran remains fragmented, and there are no integrated studies that systematically combine findings across different domains. The present study aims to systematically review and integrate research findings related to open innovation and sustainable development in Iranian industrial organizations. It examines how open innovation contributes to sustainable industrial development by integrating external knowledge and resources, thereby promoting economic growth, environmental protection, and social responsibility in industrial organizations. By analyzing the relationship between open innovation practices and sustainable development goals, this study aims to provide a comprehensive framework that supports sustainability and balanced development in the long term.
Materials and Methods: This study adopts a qualitative meta-synthesis methodology to analyze existing literature on open innovation in Iran. The research process began with the collection of 256 academic articles from four leading Iranian databases: the Human Sciences Database, Noormags, Magiran, and SID (Scientific Information Database), covering the period from 2011 to 2020. To ensure relevance and rigor, a four-stage screening process was applied. The first stage involved title screening to eliminate unrelated publications. The second stage focused on abstracts to identify articles dealing with open innovation in industrial or organizational settings. The third stage involved full-text review, and the fourth stage assessed the theoretical and methodological contribution of each study. Ultimately, 41 articles were deemed suitable for inclusion in the meta-synthesis. These articles were analyzed using open and axial coding techniques drawn from grounded theory. Open coding was used to extract key concepts, while axial coding grouped these into broader thematic categories.
Results: The analysis revealed a conceptual model comprising four main categories, 13 themes, and 45 actionable concepts. The first category, “Strategic mechanisms for open innovation,” includes practices such as customer participation in product design, employee involvement in idea generation, leveraging external knowledge through secure contracts, employing skilled labor, and outsourcing technology development. The second category, “Roles of open innovation,” highlights its function in fostering organizational learning, enhancing market responsiveness, and promoting collaborative ecosystems. The third category, “Challenges and barriers,” identifies cultural resistance, weak intellectual property protection, insufficient governance structures, and limited infrastructure for knowledge exchange as major impediments to open innovation in Iran. The fourth category, “Outcomes of successful implementation,” points to positive results such as increased organizational adaptability, enhanced stakeholder trust, improved innovation performance, and progress toward sustainability goals. These categories not only reflect the recurring findings in the literature but also offer a coherent structure for designing and evaluating open innovation strategies in practice.
Conclusion: The study provides a comprehensive overview of how open innovation has been understood and applied in the Iranian industrial context over the past decade. By integrating insights from a diverse body of literature, the study offers a unified model that captures the strategic, functional, and operational dimensions of open innovation. From a theoretical standpoint, the findings contribute to a deeper understanding of innovation management within emerging economies, particularly in relation to sustainability and knowledge-based development. Practically, the proposed model equips managers and policymakers with actionable strategies for fostering open innovation, such as engaging customers in co-creation, supporting internal innovation platforms, facilitating secure external partnerships, and investing in human capital.