Pro-socially motivated interaction for knowledge integration in crowd-based open innovation

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study how the online temporary crowd shares knowledge in a way that fosters the integration of their diverse knowledge. Having the crowd integrate its knowledge to offer solution-ideas to ill-structured problems posed by organizations is one of the desired outcomes of crowd-based open innovation because, by integrating others’ knowledge, the ideas are more likely to consider the many divergent issues related to solving the ill-structured problem. Unfortunately, the diversity of knowledge content offered by heterogeneous specialists in the online temporary crowd makes integration difficult, and the lean social context of the crowd makes extensive dialogue to resolve integration issues impractical. The authors address this issue by exploring theoretically how the manner in which interaction is organically conducted during open innovation challenges enables the generation of integrative ideas. The authors hypothesize that, as online crowds organically share knowledge based upon successful pro-socially motivated interaction, they become more productive in generating integrative ideas. Design/methodology/approach: Using a multilevel mixed-effects model, this paper analyzed 2,244 posts embedded in 747 threads with 214 integrative ideas taken from 10 open innovation challenges. Findings: Integrative ideas were more likely to occur after pro-socially motivated interactions. Research limitations/implications: Ideas that integrate knowledge about the variety of issues that relate to solving an ill-structured problem are desired outcomes of crowd-based open innovation challenges. Given that members of the crowd in open innovation challenges rarely engage in dialogue, a new theory is needed to explain why integrative ideas emerge at all. The authors’ adaptation of pro-social motivation interaction theory helps to provide such a theoretical explanation. Practitioners of crowd-based open innovation should endeavor to implement systems that encourage the crowd members to maintain a high level of activeness in pro-socially motivated interaction to ensure that their knowledge is integrated as solutions are generated. Originality/value: The present study extends the crowd-based open innovation literature by identifying new forms of social interaction that foster more integrated ideas from the crowd, suggesting the mitigating role of pro-socially motivated interaction in the negative relationship between knowledge diversity and knowledge integration. This study fills in the research gap in knowledge management research describing a need for conceptual frameworks explaining how to manage the increasing complexity of knowledge in the context of crowd-based collaboration for innovation

Theoretical framework focusing on learning in polycentric settings

This deliverable provides the theoretical underpinning of the NEWCOMERS project, including the key concepts and definitions as well as the formulation of research propositions in order to enhance the project’s coherence. To this end, it develops a novel theoretical framework based on polycentric governance theory, combined with elements from socio-technical systems theory, social innovationtheory, and value theory in order to facilitate the analysis of the emergence and diffusion of new clean energy communities and explore opportunities for learning in different national and local polycentric settings.The deliverable is structured as follows. Chapter 2 provides the background of the NEWCOMERS project and introduces the theoretical perspectives that will be used in the analyses, including polycentric governance theory, socio-technical systems theory, and social innovation theory. Chapter 3 explores the concept of clean energy communities and develops a definition of new clean energycommunities to be used in the project. Chapter 4 provides a state-of-the-art account of current thinking about polycentric governance and identifies the main themes of polycentric governance theory that are relevant for studying new clean energy communities. Chapter 5 summarises the set of research propositions to be tested in the NEWCOMERS project

Navigating the Black Box: Generativity and Incongruences in Digital Innovation

Digital technologies offer generative potential as they are malleable, dynamic and can be leveraged across a range of tasks. Prior studies have mainly focused on generativity as driver for recombinatorial innovation. However, not much attention has been paid to 1) how innovators develop cognitive frames in the face of seemingly unbound possibilities and 2) how heterogeneous actors resolve differences, or incongruences, in their cognitive frames.Extant research provides only partial answers on how innovators navigate those challenges. Therefore, this thesis aims to generate new insight on how innovators balance generativity and incongruences in digital innovation. It is based on two empirical papers that draw upon a two-year, longitudinal single-case study of a distributed, heterogeneous innovation network engaged in leveraging digital technologies in the context of marine environment.This thesis finds that embracing generativity increases the risk of clashes between incongruences amongst innovators. On the other hand, innovators leverage the generative potential of digital components to respond to incongruences by producing boundary objects or facilitating innovation trajectory shifts. Moreover, the appended papers illustrate how innovators may employ a non-linear innovation approach and loosely defined organizational structures to facilitate repeated shifts in their innovation trajectory. At the same time, this thesis finds that too many shifts create challenges in network coordination and maintaining a coherent strategic vision

Open data governance in smart mobility: an empirical investigation of Shanghai

Master of Science i global ledelse - Nord universitett 202

Complex Adaptive Systems & Urban Morphogenesis:

This thesis looks at how cities operate as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). It focuses on how certain characteristics of urban form can support an urban environment's capacity to self-organize, enabling emergent features to appear that, while unplanned, remain highly functional. The research is predicated on the notion that CAS processes operate across diverse domains: that they are ‘generalized' or ‘universal'. The goal of the dissertation is then to determine how such generalized principles might ‘play out' within the urban fabric. The main thrust of the work is to unpack how elements of the urban fabric might be considered as elements of a complex system and then identify how one might design these elements in a more deliberate manner, such that they hold a greater embedded capacity to respond to changing urban forces. The research is further predicated on the notion that, while such responses are both imbricated with, and stewarded by human actors, the specificities of the material characteristics themselves matter. Some forms of material environments hold greater intrinsic physical capacities (or affordances) to enact the kinds of dynamic processes observed in complex systems than others (and can, therefore, be designed with these affordances in mind). The primary research question is thus:   What physical and morphological conditions need to be in place within an urban environment in order for Complex Adaptive Systems dynamics arise - such that the physical components (or ‘building blocks') of the urban environment have an enhanced capacity to discover functional configurations in space and time as a response to unfolding contextual conditions?   To answer this question, the dissertation unfolds in a series of parts. It begins by attempting to distill the fundamental dynamics of a Complex Adaptive System. It does so by means of an extensive literature review that examines a variety of highly cited ‘defining principles' or ‘key attributes' of CAS. These are cross-referenced so as to extract common features and distilled down into six major principles that are considered as the generalized features of any complex system, regardless of domain. In addition, this section considers previous urban research that engages complexity principles in order to better position the distinctive perspective of this thesis. This rests primarily on the dissertation's focus on complex urban processes that occur by means of materially enabled in situ processes. Such processes have, it is argued, remained largely under-theorized. The opening section presents introductory examples of what might be meant by a ‘materially enabling' environment.   The core section of the research then undertakes a more detailed unpacking of how complex processes can be understood as having a morphological dimension. This section begins by discussing, in broad terms, the potential ‘phase space' of a physical environment and how this can be expanded or limited according to a variety of factors. Drawing insights from related inquiries in the field of Evolutionary Economic Geography, the research argues that, while emergent capacity is often explored in social, economic, or political terms, it is under-theorized in terms of the concrete physical sub-strata that can also act to ‘carry' or ‘moor' CAS dynamics. This theme is advanced in the next article, where a general framework for speaking about CAS within urban environments is introduced. This framework borrows from the terms for ‘imageability' that were popularized by Kevin Lynch: paths, edges, districts, landmarks, and nodes. These terms are typically associated with physical or ‘object-like features' of the urban environment – that is to say, their image. The terminology is then co-opted such that it makes reference not simply to physical attributes, but rather to the complex processes these attributes enable. To advance this argument, the article contrasts the static and ‘imageable' qualities of New Urbanism projects with the ‘unfolding' and dynamic qualities of complex systems - critiquing NU proponents as failing to appreciate the underlying forces that generate the environments they wish to emulate. Following this, the efficacy of the re-purposed ‘Lynchian' framework is tested using the case study of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. Here, specific elements of the Bazaar's urban fabric are positioned as holding material agency that enables particular emergent spatial phenomena to manifest. In addition, comparisons are drawn between physical dynamics unfolding within the Bazaar's morphological setting (leading to emergent merchant districts) and parallel dynamics explored within Evolutionary Economic Geography).   The last section of the research extends this research to consider digitally augmented urban elements that hold an enhanced ability to receive and convey information. A series of speculative thought-experiments highlight how augmented urban entities could employ CAS dynamics to ‘solve for' different kinds of urban optimization scenarios, leading these material entities to self-organize (with their users) and discover fit regimes. The final paper flips the perspective, considering how, not only material agency, but also human agency is being augmented by new information processing technologies (smartphones), and how this can lead to new dances of agency that in turn generate novel emergent outcomes.   The dissertation is based on a compilation of articles that have, for the most part, been published in academic journals and all the research has been presented at peer-reviewed academic conferences. An introduction, conclusion, and explanatory transitions between sections are provided in order to clarify the narrative thread between the sections and the articles. Finally, a brief ‘coda' on the spatial dynamics afforded by Turkish Tea Gardens is offered

Engagement within the Federal Government and Beyond for Designing Digital Services

“Engagement within the Federal Government and Beyond for Designing Digital Services” explores the current efforts of the Federal Government to engage public servants internally as well as various sectors externally in order to transform service delivery to Canadians. Current federal government engagement focuses predominantly on engaging in order to problem frame around how we might improve service delivery. This MRP explores how this has led to a growing recognition that the Government of Canada believes digital services will improve services to Canadians. This MRP argues that in order for federal governments to begin transforming service delivery and producing digital services, it may want to consider utilizing engagement as a means of co-designing and prototyping better digital services with the wider public service and Canadians. In order to better understand engagement within the federal government, this Major Research Project observed federal innovation labs and online platforms. As well as attending various conferences on Digital Government between 2016-2018. This MRP finds that alongside the growing need to design digital services, there is also growing consideration on how we might make digital services accessible to all Canadians

Crowdworking: Nurturing Expert-Centric Absorptive Capacity

Absorptive capacity, or the organizational capability to identify, assimilate, and apply new knowledge for commercial ends, is a key determinant of how organizations successfully generate value from external sources of knowledge and sustain a competitive advantage. Crowdworking—a novel form of digitally mediated work—allows organizations to hire on-demand highly skilled external experts to leverage their knowledge, skills, and networks. The approach of integrating crowdworking into organizations is increasingly gaining traction among large corporations seeking to harness the knowledge in external communities for value generation. Building on an in-depth embedded case study in a large organization that relies on two established crowdwork platforms, we explore how the organization developed its crowdworking-related absorptive capacity to generate value from external experts. We find that the crowdworking-related absorptive capacity phenomenon is a particular instance of expert-centric absorptive capacity that organizations develop by retaining on-demand external experts. We also find that this capacity can be developed through two idiosyncratic configurations of orchestrated and distributed routines that integrate external experts and utilize their knowledge in the host organization. These findings offer new insights into the prevailing modus operandi related to harnessing external knowledge in today’s organizations