Market reaction to open innovation announcements

Open innovation is of crucial importance for all companies operating in the economics of widely distributed knowledge. However, the effects of its disclosure remain largely uncharted in the case of service companies. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to measure the impact of open innovation announcements on the market value (MV) of service enterprises.

The research covered 398 open innovation announcements released by service companies. It was conducted in the whole of the European Union in the period February 2011-December 2016. The data were analysed in the short and long term with the use of event-study and buy-and-hold methods.

The results indicated the significant positive effect of open innovation disclosure in both short and long term. At the same time, the market was not able to immediately fully value the information in the short run and tended to overestimate the positive effect of the innovation announced. No significant leakage and dissemination effects were observed prior to the announcement. There was no significant difference in the magnitude of positive and negative reactions to the releases.

From the point of view of business practice the research proved the benefits of information disclosure and supported the long-term planning. From the investors’ viewpoint, it signalled the small risk of significant fluctuations resulting from aggressive trading prior to the announcement and unwinding part of the acquired position afterwards.

The paper attempts to fulfil the research gap on the impact of the announcements on open innovation on the MV of companies.