Collaborative innovation is the process of multiple employees or teams combining their knowledge, skills, experience and resources to create or improve upon a solution for a common benefit.

Collaboration in the workplace can vary based on the type of work environment your company implements. However, some common examples of collaboration in the workplace include brainstorming with other experts on staff, implementing routine reviews and avenues for feedback, or delegating tasks on a shared project.

So, open innovation is broader than collaborative innovation because it does not focus on the same problem. Open innovation concerns all the means that can be used by a firm to gain access to technology whereas collaborative innovation focuses on a way for firms to create a new technology and artifact.

New ideas are often borne into a hostile environment and a team of people can provide the support to push through the hierarchies of inertia. If you are employed, good ideas not invented by management can be seen as a threat, thus, having a group helps push through the expected resistance and doubt.