Reviewing What is the Role of Information Technology in Open Innovation: Based on Visualizing Bibliometric Analysis

Information technology plays a critical role in the open innovation process, which promotes us to explore the trajectory of relationship between information technology and open innovation. However, from now, few research analyzes the evolution of the relationship between information technology and open innovation. To identify the development of previous studies and the direction of future research, this paper analyzes 821 articles which are located in the Web of Science by bibliometric analysis. Through the presenting overall picture of the relationship between information technology and open innovation, this will contribute to our understanding the evolution of relationship and identifying research directions in the future research. The results show that the number of papers on this topic is on the rise, the literature is unevenly distributed in various journals, the core author group has not yet formed, and the academic exchanges between countries and institutions are relatively scattered. Highly cited papers focused on the research status of information technology, the research status of open innovation, the role of information technology in management innovation and value creation. The research hotspots cover the objects, objectives, implementation methods, and mechanism variables of the relationship between information technology and open innovation. The research topic is characterized by “diversified dispersion”. The research stage is divided into research foundation period (2000-2010) and multiple development period (2011-present). The duration and evolution of the citation bursts are basically the same. The theoretical framework covers the direct effect, mediator mechanism and moderator mechanism of information technology on open innovation.