DEVELOPING THE COMPETENCE PORTFOLIO FOR OPEN INNOVATION: ISSUES FOR EDUCATIONAL MANAGEMENT

Contemporary organizations are facing the shift from Closed to Open Innovation model. Chesbrough (2003) 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.” . There were some attempts to apply open innovation framework to the public, especially social sector (Chesbrough, Di Minin, 2014); using the term Open Social Innovation. Open Social Innovations were defined as the application of either inbound or outbound open innovation strategies to social challenges. Educational innovations are the part of social innovations.
From the organization management perspective we know, that management, including innovation management, becomes less „organized“ by bureaucracies and administrative tools, and much more impacted by organizational capabilities, competences and hidden, „soft“ routines that bring innovation and creativity to the core of organization.

The research in the area of organizational competences and skills for open innovation is needed, because the adoption of open innovation practices have brought new professional profiles and roles, leading to creation of new sets of skills and competences that managers, staff, in our case, educators and education managers, should acquire. The paper aims at answering the following research questions: what are the open innovation competence profiles within educational organizations? What are the challenges for education management at different levels in order to act successfully within open innovation framework? What competences shall be developed in order to obtain organizational Competence portfolio for Open Innovation?

These questions are addressed drawing on the results of research carried out in the frame of the research project AISTIS. The project AISTIS aims to develop a complex methodology for the evaluation of national innovation system with reference to its evolution towards open innovation ecosystem. . Mixed methods where applied for the evaluation of the macro context and organizational behaviors to support open innovation practices among the ecosystem actors. Particular role is assigned to educational organizations within the ecosystem. The analysis with the purpose of this paper is based on the extracted data on organizations, representing education sector within the common sample (N=74). It will enable to draw competence and learning profiles for open innovation in educational organizations, as well as define the linkages and interactions they are building with other actors within the ecosystem.

The research data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, regression analysis and calculating the Z-factor. The insights presented in the article are part of a large-scale research that are important for researchers focused on the issues of open innovation and open social innovation management, also managers who orient innovative processes towards the open innovation paradigm, especially in educational sector.