Our next Guest in Classroom was Aurelia Engelsberger, founder of OMIND Consulting. Ms Engelsberger is a Bachelor’s graduated of HSPF where she earned a BSc. in Human Resources Management. She further earned a MSc. in Organizational Psychology in Amsterdam and her PhD in Melbourne, Australia. Ms Engelsberger’s OMIND Consulting provides leading and expertise in the intersection of human resources and innovation.
But what is open innovation? Ms Engelsberger shared a quote from Henry Chesbrough, initiator of the Open Innovation theory, that defines open innovation as “the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively.” (p.1)
Further, open innovation is a knowledge exchange mechanism where the employee is the key driver because they are those that share and source knowledge. This results in more cost effective R&D, mitigation of innovation risk, reduced time to market, and more engaged customers. These results thus generates a competitive advantage for a company, and is now a solution for SMEs. However, with anything comes challenges, and some that can be encountered with implementation of open innovation are lack of incentives, lack of KPIs, and communication barriers. On the other hand, the benefits outweigh the risks as knowledge exchange promotes efficiency, reduced workload, psychological safety, and extended networking and learning opportunities.
While our students are instructed on innovation management and human resources management, Ms Engelsberger provided a new learning experience to the concept of open innovation and how it benefits companies, employees, and customers alike. Thank you Ms Engelsberger for your thoughtful insight!

Text and screenshot: Gabrielle Boimann, Class of 2022