4 research outputs found
Facilitating Standardization through Living Labs – The Example of Drug Counterfeiting
The increasing threat inherent to counterfeited drugs requires coordinated effort among multiple actors with diverging interests. Although multiple initiatives exist, no comprehensive and promising development and diffusion of a commonly applicable and interoperable solution has taken place so far. Agreeing on standards is an essential step on the road to a successful initiative on drug counterfeiting. To facilitate standardization, especially the initiation of a standardization process, we propose the concept of Living Labs as an innovative developing and testing environment serving multiple purposes. Testing solutions in real-life-contexts, aligning multiple interests and resulting in a pre-standard and a proof-of-concept are the advantages of this concept which facilitate the participation and coordinated action among a broad set of different stakeholders
Value Assessment of Business-to-Government Innovations: a Case Study
This article studies value assessments of IT solutions in public as well as in private contexts and aims to identify benefits of business-to-government innovations. The work analyzes the case of the implementation of European common e-customs solutions. Over the last few years, e-customs has become a widely studied topic within the European Union. However, only a little research has been conducted in order to identify benefits of such IT innovations. For this reason, this paper is dedicated to the value assessment of e-customs solutions. Within the framework of a European funded project, the study was conducted collecting data from interviews and workshops involving stakeholders coming from public as well as private organizations. By applying a theoretical value assessment framework, four main areas of improvement due to common e-customs solutions’ implementation were identified: increased security, reduction of administrative burden, facilitated compliance, and better communication. This article contributes towards value assessment research and in particular to a standardized e-customs solution as an example of business-to-government innovations
Living Labs as Open Innovation Networks - Networks, Roles and Innovation Outcomes
The importance and benefits of open innovation networks are widely accepted. Enterprises and other organisations are increasingly utilizing a variety of open innovation networks in different contexts. This study defines a living lab as a concept including real-life environments, a multitude of different stakeholders, and the importance of users as a part of innovation activities. Living labs are interesting because they represent a new way of organizing innovation activities by facing parallel socio-economic challenges and technological opportunities. This study aims to understand networks, user and stakeholder roles, and outcomes generated in living labs. The study has the following research questions: (1) What is a living lab, from a network perspective? (2) What roles do users and stakeholders have in living lab networks? (3) How do network structures affect outcomes in living labs?
The research paradigm of this dissertation is grounded in constructivism. This study applies abductive reasoning as the research approach, where the study is grounded in literature on living labs and consists of empirical data on 26 living labs in Finland, Sweden, Spain and South Africa. The study offers many theoretical contributions and defined concepts for the living labs literature. Among the theoretical contributions, this study identifies seven new stakeholder roles (coordinator, builder, messenger, facilitator, orchestrator, integrator and informant), and four role patterns (role ambidexterity, reciprocity, temporality and multiplicity) in living labs. Next, this study highlights that collaboration and outcomes in living labs are achieved in the absence of strict objectives. This contribution is unique: many other studies on innovation propose that innovation activities should be managed and controlled. Further, this study identifies centralised, decentralised and distributed networks structures in living lab networks and uses them to analyse innovation activities in living labs. This study also reveals that network structures support the various types of innovations in living lab networks.
This study offers tools and frameworks for managers and researchers to understand, identify and categorise open innovation networks and pursue innovation development in open innovation networks, particularly in living lab networks. For the future, this dissertation suggests nineteen propositions and a range of other research opportunities for open innovation networks and particularly living labs but also for contingency theory and the resource-based view. Avointen innovaatioverkkojen merkitys ja hyödyt ovat laajalti hyväksyttyjä. Yritykset ja muut organisaatiot hyödyntävät yhä enemmän avoimia innovaatioverkkoja eri konteksteissa. Väitöskirja määrittelee living labin koostuvan tosielämän ympäristöistä, lukuisista eri toimijoista ja korostavan käyttäjien merkitystä innovaatiotoiminnassa. Living labit ovat mielenkiintoisia, sillä ne edustavat uutta tapaa organisoida innovaatiotoimintaa, joissa kohdataan rinnakkaisia sosioekonomisia haasteita ja teknologisia mahdollisuuksia. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena on ymmärtää living lab -verkkoja, toimijoiden ja käyttäjien rooleja sekä living labeissä syntyviä innovaatioita. Väitöskirjan tutkimuskysymykset ovat: (1) Mikä living lab on verkkojen näkökulmasta? (2) Millaisia rooleja käyttäjillä ja toimijoilla on living lab -verkoissa? (3) Miten living lab -verkkojen rakenteet vaikuttavat niiden tuloksiin?
Väitöskirja perustuu konstruktivismiin. Työssä hyödynnetään abduktiivista tutkimusotetta, joka rakentuu living labbejä käsittelevään kirjallisuuteen sekä Suomesta, Ruotsista, Espanjasta ja Etelä-Afrikasta kerätyn 26 living labiä sisältävän empiirisen datan vuoropuheluun. Tutkimus tarjoaa monia tuloksia sekä konsepteja living lab -kirjallisuuteen. Esimerkiksi väitöskirja tunnistaa seitsemän uutta toimijan roolia (koordinaatttori, rakentaja, viestinviejä, fasilitaattori, orkestraattori, integraattori ja informaattori) sekä neljä roolin muotoa (roolin samanaikaisuus, molemmin-puolisuus, väliaikaisuus ja moninaisuus). Tämä tutkimus korostaa, että living labsissä saavutetaan tuloksia ilman tiukkoja ennalta määriteltyjä tavoitteita. Tämä tulos on ainutlaatuinen koska aiemmat tutkimukset ehdottavat, että innovaatiotoiminta tulisi olla ennalta määriteltyä ja hallittavaa. Lisäksi väitöskirja tunnistaa keskitetyn, hajautetun ja moninkertaisen verkon rakenteet living lab -verkoissa ja käyttää niitä innovaatiotoiminnan analysointiin living labseissa.
Väitöskirjassa kuvataan verkkorakenteiden tukevan erityyppisten innovaatioiden syntymistä living lab -verkoissa. Tutkimus tarjoaa työkaluja ja viitekehyksiä johtajille ja tutkijoille avoimen innovaation verkkojen, erityisesti living lab -verkkojen ymmärtämiseen, tunnistamiseen ja luokittelemiseen sekä niiden kehittämiseen. Tämä väitöskirja esittää yhdeksäntoista propositiota ja monia muita tutkimusmahdollisuuksia avoimiin innovaatioverkkoihin ja erityisesti living labeihin mutta myös kontingenssiteoriaan ja resurssipohjaiseen näkemykseen.
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Facilitating Co-creation in Living Labs
Companies increasingly turn towards users for inspiration to develop innovative products and services. Living labs (LLs) represent a new way for companies to engage in co-creation and to better understand user needs. LLs interact with a wide set of stakeholders, such as customers, companies and universities. Therefore, coordinating co-creation is particularly complex, as it requires the inclusion of more activities and actors than those of traditional closed innovation models. It is thus crucial to identify how co-creation can be facilitated in LLs. In spite of a growing body of literature, an understanding of those factors facilitating cocreation in LLs is still lacking. To fill this gap, the perspectives of three key stakeholders, the LL facilitators, companies and co-creators, are considered. This study employs a qualitative explorative approach in the form of a holistic single-case study. A bottom-up theory building approach based on rich qualitative data, collected through interviews, focus groups, observations, questionnaires, and documentary information, is chosen, and grounded theory identified as a suitable approach. Contributions from this thesis are captured in ‘The Five Ps for Co-creation Facilitation in Living Labs’ framework which presents the conditions to allow for systematic and tailored facilitation services. The five Ps - Purpose, Principles, People, Place, and Prize – build the cornerstones of this framework. This thesis suggests that it is important to understand the purpose behind a company’s co-creation project to tailor the facilitation service to its needs. Indeed, seven distinct categories of project objectives are reported. Furthermore, this study identifies seven principles influencing the interaction of People and Place of the LL. Finally, eight categories of project outcomes are recognised, referred to as Prize. This study contributes to the research on co-creation in LLs and provides guidelines for practitioners that would like to engage in such open innovation activities.EPSRC iCASE awar