The current developments of entrepreneurship in networks can be described by the metaphor of a jam session in regard to the organizational models currently observable. The interpreters of this jam session, the networked individuals and organizations, seem to have thrown the conductor’s score away improvising on the challenges and opportunities they are confronted with. The result of that may be growing disorder and instability of increasingly diversifying society, but just like in jam sessions this seems to be nevertheless working astoundingly well. The order emerging out of disorder and the stability of highly dynamic systems are two paradox figures that seem to be observable in many situations where sociality meets individualism.

On the basis of the mentioned approaches towards Open Innovation and Open Entrepreneurship, we would like to venture on the attempt of a synthesis. From our point of view both approaches are interacting and built on each other. Only in combination a deeper understanding for the existing potentials of both concepts is possible. While the perspective embodied in Open Innovation by the integration of the user into the organization mostly has a top-down view, Open Entrepreneurship exactly works the other way round from bottom-up. Regarding inter-organizational cooperation, Open Innovation provides an inside-to-outside view on external resources and competencies whereas Open Entrepreneurship comes from the outside, from the widespread knowledge probably emerging in something that could possibly build a future inside in networks or on the switch to markets and hierarchies.

A new type of entrepreneur therefore has to combine elements of both approaches and make innovation on the whole more likely to happen by acting in networking structures together with other users or companies: the Open Entrepreneur or in short terms “Openeur”. According to that, Openeurs are companies or single individuals who take advantage of the opportunities of Open Innovation through collaborative work in networking structures and who generate added values in networks out of their knowledge and faculties.