Rainwater Harvesting Pilot Project Report

Open innovation is a common practice among nearly 80% of large firms, yet the exploration of innovation within financial services remains limited in existing literature. Similarly, while the potential benefits of innovative distributed ledger technology (DLT) are widely recognized, its adoption within the financial services industry has been sluggish. This systematic literature review aims to examine whether financial services firms engage in open innovation, particularly focusing on outside-in innovation over inside-out innovation, and to uncover potential barriers to DLT adoption at the industry level. Drawing from peer-reviewed journals between 2017 and 2022, the review synthesizes findings to address key questions. Specifically, it investigates why inside-out open innovation is less practiced and understood, whether financial institutions possess the willingness to change their business and service models, why they may not engage in inside-out open innovation, and their proficiency in DLT. Our analysis identifies various factors contributing to the limited uptake of open innovation in financial services, including a preference for closed innovation and outside-in open innovation, organizational conservatism, trust issues within the ecosystem, conflicting priorities, timing constraints, and the perceived threat to existing business models posed by DLT innovation. In conclusion, while open innovation has garnered academic attention and industry practice, there remains a gap in the literature regarding methodologies and standards, which could serve as a framework for practitioners. This paper emphasizes the need for further research to understand current practices, successes, incentives, failures, and abandonment rates in open innovation, ultimately facilitating the development of best practices standards.