Angelika C. Bullinger

Community-Based Innovation Contests: Where Competition Meets Cooperation

While the principle of competition has long been found to be conducive to innovation, community-based innovation contests additionally offer the possibilities of interaction and cooperation among participants. This duality makes innovation contests an interesting field for both academia and practice. However, a surge in practical implementations stands in contrast to a still restricted body of academic knowledge in the field. To close this gap, drawing on a boundary spanning perspective, we examine if and how cooperation in the competitive setting of innovation contests leads to innovativeness. Cooperative orientation of contest participants is explored within a community-based innovation contest run in 2009 at one of the largest universities in Germany. We analyse a complete set of data collected during the contest, data from a follow-up survey among individual participants (n = 943), as well as video and audio footage from four focus groups. Findings suggest that a very high as well as a very low degree of cooperative orientation result in a high degree of innovativeness, while a medium degree of cooperative orientation results in a low degree of innovativeness. Additionally, this research extends the concept of boundary spanning by identifying two subtypes: proactive and reactive boundary spanning.

Integrating Inside and Outside Innovators: A Sociotechnical Systems Perspective

Innovation literature stresses the importance of opening the innovation process to internal and external innovators. The question of what determines the integration of these types of innovators in the innovation process remains open. We use a sociotechnical systems perspective to address a number of challenges with respect to this matter: an organization deploying different innovation practices to open the innovation process might not be aware which types of innovators are de facto integrated in its innovation process. Alternatively, an organization targeting the integration of a particular type of innovator might not use the suitable innovation practices to integrate the knowledge of this type of innovator. To address these challenges, our comparative case-study analysis in 15 medium-sized firms derives a theoretical framework proposing that a combined analysis of innovation practices and underlying social interactions is needed to decide about the integration of a particular type of innovator in the innovation process. Being aware of these interrelations will allow organizations to act more consciously when opening their innovation processes.

Innovation Contests: A Review, Classification and Outlook

Innovation contests as a means to realize innovative product or service solutions are growing in popularity among practitioners and researchers. An increasing number of organizations worldwide have adopted innovation contests, not only for innovation purposes, but also for other reasons such as promoting sustainability. At the same time, innovation contests represent a growing research field to scholars from different backgrounds, e.g., economics or information systems. In this article, first, the growing body of literature on innovation contests is reviewed and classified into five research categories: economic perspective, management perspective, education focus, innovation focus and sustainability focus. Second, some design elements of innovation contests that are central for the understanding, design and management of innovation contests are presented based on the current body of literature. Finally, current research gaps are presented and some of the research questions are developed that could be explored to contribute to the body of literature.

Open innovation in health care: Analysis of an open health platform

Today, integration of the public in research and development in health care is seen as essential for the advancement of innovation. This is a paradigmatic shift away from the traditional assumption that solely health care professionals are able to devise, develop, and disseminate novel concepts and solutions in health care. The present study builds on research in the field of open innovation to investigate the adoption of an open health platform by patients, care givers, physicians, family members, and the interested public. Results suggest that open innovation practices in health care lead to interesting innovation outcomes and are well accepted by participants. During the first three months, 803 participants of the open health platform submitted challenges and solutions and intensively communicated by exchanging 1454 personal messages and 366 comments. Analysis of communication content shows that empathic support and exchange of information are important elements of communication on the platform. The study presents first evidence for the suitability of open innovation practices to integrate the general public in health care research in order to foster both innovation outcomes and empathic support.

Open Innovation and Firm Performance: The Mediating Role of Social Capital

This article examines the role of social relations and networks in open innovation settings. Building on extant open innovation literature as well as on social capital theory, we develop a model that conceptualizes social capital as a mediator between the implementation of open innovation instruments and firm performance. In doing so, this paper adds to the understanding of the role of structure and content of social relations in open innovation contexts as well as of sustainable side‐effects of open innovation. In particular, we argue that apart from a direct effect of open innovation instruments on firm performance, there is also a mediated relationship between these variables. More precisely, we propose that the implementation of open innovation instruments strengthens an organizations social capital, which is, in turn, positively related to firm performance.

Innovation Contests: An IT-Based Tool for Innovation Management

2,232, 4,298, 26,617, 8,582 . . . these are key figures of a recent IT-based innovation contest conducted by Bombardier (http://yourail-design.bombardier.com). This initiative aimed at identifying “new and innovative interior designs for trains”. The numbers mentioned at the beginning of this article hence spell out in the following manner: During a ten weeks period, 2,232 persons participated in the innovation contest by submitting 4,298 designs, immense 26,617 ratings, and 8,582 comments on competing submissions. Thus, by an IT-based innovation management tool, even a B2B company like Bombardier can get in touch with end users and other outside experts (e.g., designers). Bombardier took advantage of the worldwide innovative potential (by calling for submissions), to gather firsthand customer insights (by evaluation of submissions, ratings, and comments), and, even more, it spread the word about the company as participants voluntarily acted as word of mouth marketers. While an organizational innovation to Bombardier, the principle of innovation contests is tried and tested. Early examples date back more than 450 years, when the king of Spain initiated the Spanish Longitude Prize to discover a method to find longitude at sea (Masters and Delbecq 2008). In the course of time, innovation contests have first been applied by public institutions which used their reputation and financial power to stimulate participation. Since the beginning of the 19th century, also industry has organized innovation contests. One early example of this time is the Billiard Ball Prize, which granted

Sustainability Innovation Contests: Evaluating Contributions with an Eco Impact-Innovativeness Typology

10,000 for a suitable substitute for ivory to make billiard balls (Masters and Delbecq 2008). Nowadays, with the global availability of broadband access to the World Wide Web, IT-based innovation contests are used for a broad range of tasks – from designing wristbands for watches (e.g., Swarovski) to solving complex scientific problems (e.g., XPrize foundation). Innovation contests allow tapping into the wisdom of the crowd (Surowiecki 2004) and integrating interested customers, end users, partners, and other outside innovators (Neyer et al. 2009) into the innovative activities of an organization. This open innovation approach follows the assumption of Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, that “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.” Integration of interested innovators allows access to both, participants’ tacit knowledge concerning needs (need information) – and their expertise with problem solving (solution information). Advances in innovation technology impact the opportunities to globally tap into this knowledge, making innovation contests a powerful tool for a variety of goals.

Open Evaluation: ein IT-basierter Ansatz für die Bewertung innovativer Konzepte

Companies operating in business-to-consumer markets have been increasingly pressured to transcend the focus on economic and technological innovations and to address more environmental-friendly and socially desirable products and services, i.e. to engage in Sustainability-oriented Innovation (SOI). This paper examines the suitability of innovation contests to generate SOIs and the resulting degree of innovativeness in conventional and ecological terms. Using a case study of an innovation contest in the shoe industry, we derive three strands of results. First, a large majority of the submissions belongs to the category of product care. Second, submissions categorised as ‘greenwashing’ receive a better average assessment, although technically equal to the ones of product care. Third, using eco-impact class as the first axis, and the (conventional) innovativeness criteria – as judged by the experts – as the second axis, we develop an eco impact-innovativeness grid. It illustrates that a vast majority of user submissions falls into the classes incremental innovation and radical conventional innovation. Results go beyond previous studies and thus contribute to the fields of open innovation and SOI.

Commenting for new ideas: insights from an open innovation platform

ZusammenfassungenKunden und externe Partner stellen eine wichtige Informationsquelle für neue Produkt- und Dienstleistungskonzepte dar. Ihre aktive Einbindung in den Innovationsprozess wird als »Open Innovation« bezeichnet. Zahlreiche IT-basierte Werkzeuge unterstützen heute Open Innovation als Komponente des betrieblichen Innovationsmanagements. Unter den möglichen Methoden zur Einbindung Externer kommt IT-basierten, online durchgeführten Innovationswettbewerben eine besonders prominente Rolle zu. Die Bewertung der im Rahmen von Innovationswettbewerben generierten Innovationsvorschläge wird heute meist unternehmensinternen Experten überlassen. Sie folgt damit dem klassischen Paradigma der geschlossenen Bewertung. Experten besitzen jedoch nur eine begrenzte Vorhersagegüte und stehen extern generierten Innovationen oft ablehnend gegenüber. Auch die Quantität der zu bewertenden Innovationen stellt eine Herausforderung dar. Es liegt daher nahe zu prüfen, inwieweit eine offene Innovationsbewertung durch die Teilnehmer eines Innovationswettbewerbs oder andere Interessengruppen — anstelle von internen Experten — erfolgen könnte. In Anlehnung an das Paradigma der Open Innovation sprechen wir im Falle der Einbindung Externer in den Bewertungsprozess von Open Evaluation. Der vorliegende Beitrag erörtert Grundlagen, Ausprägungsformen und Erfolgschancen offener Innovationsbewertung mittels Open Evaluation und zeigt das Potenzial und die Grenzen dieses IT-basierten Ansatzes für die Bewertung innovativer Konzepte anhand von fünf Fallstudien auf.

Open Collaborative Development: Trends, Tools, and Tactics

As users increasingly demand sustainable products and services, companies react to this claim by establishing open innovation platforms. These platforms allow users to submit ideas and use community functionalities to mutually comment and evaluate their activities. Both submissions and comments by idea owners, community managers and peers hold considerable knowledge. This paper examines the content of comments provided on an open innovation platform for energy efficient solutions. Results show how idea owners, community managers and peers use comments in distinct ways. Descriptive statistics reveal that ideas, which receive most comments by each group, are judged highest in innovativeness by experts.