Marine Agogué

Rethinking the role of intermediaries as an architect of collective exploration and creation of knowledge in open innovation

This paper questions the applicability of traditional notions of intermediary activities, which are usually categorized as either brokering or networking, in cases of high uncertainty regarding technologies, markets or which actors to involve. In the case of collaborative open innovation, especially in circumstances when no single organization is able to take on the challenge alone, the activities traditionally associated with intermediation do not suffice to describe what an intermediary can do to support innovation. This paper presents two cases of intermediaries working with the early phases of traffic safety innovations, and how they have managed to develop their activities beyond solely brokering and networking, but also to take an active role in the process of joint exploration and creation of knowledge. We use a qualitative approach to analyze the two cases in order to provide examples of how rethinking intermediation activities can support open innovation in a collaborative setting. The findings suggest that intermediaries can take on a more active role, which could be described as an architect which designs prerequisites and offers leadership in the process of joint exploration and creation of knowledge.

Orphan innovation, or when path-creation goes stale: a design framework to characterise path-dependence in real time

How can we identify whether innovation processes in an organisation, a region or a sector are stagnating? Moreover, how can we assess the degree of innovation stagnation? These are issues at the core of the management of innovation literature, and the challenge of how to answer these questions in real time remains a problem yet to be solved, particularly in cases where innovation is highly expected. Most path-dependence studies observe the degree of ‘innovativeness’ in novelty creation and analyse path-dependence and path-creation phenomena after the fact, relegating the actors to grasping at the lessons learned rather than providing them with a real-time diagnosis of their specific situation. However, in some lock-in situations where the demand for innovation is high – we label these as orphan innovation situations – characterising the paths that are potential candidates for path-creation can be critical for the development of the industrial sector. With the goal of assessing path-dependence in real time, we develop a framework to visualise three types of innovation pathways (those explored, those not explored but visible in the present innovation field, and those potential pathways that are unknown in the present innovation field). Using C-K design theory as a conceptual framework, we go further and apply this framework to two case studies to explore its utility as a reference for assessing the degree of innovativeness for a field of innovation. We then explore the frameworks potential to provide strategic intelligence to break out of stagnant situations.

Gamification of Creativity: Exploring the Usefulness of Serious Games for Ideation

Organizing for idea generation is a recurring challenge in intensive innovation contexts. The literature on ideation has reached a compelling consensus on the features that such organizational devices must possess to support sufficient creativity: learning processes and a creative climate of confidence to promote collaboration. However, current practical methodologies struggle to simultaneously realize these two features. In this paper, we explore the potential of Serious Games, a collaborative tool that has been used since the 1960s to facilitate learning processes through the simulation of reality and a role-playing game, to induce an immersive experience and, more recently, to support the ideation process. To do so, we conducted an exploratory case study using a Serious Game to support ideation in a French medium-sized business. We then assess the strengths and areas for improvement of this Serious Game with respect to an ideation performance framework based on the existing literature. Our findings show that Serious Games are efficient tools for supporting existing knowledge exchange between participants and collaboration by providing a creative climate, but they may not sufficiently support learning of the external knowledge required to attain high levels of originality. Accordingly, we discuss some crucial parameters to be further explored to allow for the effective managerial use of such methodologies, such as the finetuning of the knowledge content that serves as a basis for the game.

10 Years of C-K Theory: A Survey on the Academic and Industrial Impacts of a Design Theory.

The goal of our research was to understand what is expected today from a design theory and what types of impact such type of scientific proposition may reach. To answer these questions with a grounded approach, we chose to study the development of C–K theory as phenomenon per se that can inform our research work. C–K theory is clearly recognised as a design theory and it is a good representative of the level of generality and abstraction of contemporary design theory, and the validity of the theory as such has already been documented (e.g. [32, 33, 35, 36, 47, 56, 68], Reich et al. 2010). The current work sets out to understand the dissemination and the impact of the theory in academic and industrial fields. The data collection overlooks the literature on C–K theory in English and in French, and includes interviews and feedbacks of students and industrial partners who applied C–K methodologies and tools. This research confirms the rapid diffusion and multiple impacts of C–K theory. Beyond, such study signals that there are important expectations towards a design theory within the field of knowledge at large. However there are strong conditions to meet these expectations: generality, generativity and relatedness to contemporary sciences. If it is impossible to say what will be the next generations of design theory, it is sure that they should progress on these directions.

Does Ambiguity Aversion Influence the Framing Effect during Decision Making

Decision-makers present a systematic tendency to avoid ambiguous options for which the level of risk is unknown. This ambiguity aversion is one of the most striking decision-making biases. Given that human choices strongly depend on the options’ presentation, the purpose of the present study was to examine whether ambiguity aversion influences the framing effect during decision making. We designed a new financial decision-making task involving the manipulation of both frame and uncertainty levels. Thirty-seven participants had to choose between a sure option and a gamble depicting either clear or ambiguous probabilities. The results revealed a clear preference for the sure option in the ambiguity condition regardless of frame. However, participants presented a framing effect in both the risk and ambiguity conditions. Indeed, the framing effect was bidirectional in the risk condition and unidirectional in the ambiguity condition given that it did not involve preference reversal but only a more extreme choice tendency.

Mindful Deviation through Combining Causation and Effectuation: A Design Theory‐Based Study of Technology Entrepreneurship

Technology entrepreneurship can be seen as building upon while also deviating from technological paths. Such deviation has primarily been described as singular events where individuals with prior knowledge discover a new opportunity. In this article, we will instead study deviation as a process of collective decision making, seen more as something mindful than singular. The purpose is to explore mindful deviation as decision-making by nascent technology entrepreneurs as they conceptualize an early platform technology. Based on case assignments undertaken by 13 teams in a venture creation program, C-K design theory is used to trace how nascent technology entrepreneurs in action combine causal and effectual decision-making logics. Individually answered questionnaires also offered insights on how the entrepreneurs perceived their decision-making in hindsight. The findings break with our received wisdom around how opportunities are recognized as well as how effectual and causal logics occur. As a result, mindful deviation through combinations of effectual and causal logic is suggested as a means to understand early-stage technology entrepreneurship.

Creativity and Innovation: State of the Art and Future Perspectives for Research

Creativity is a vibrant field of scientific research with important applied implications for the management of innovation. In this chapter, we argue that the proliferation of creativity research has led to positive and less positive outcomes and discuss five relevant research themes. We first introduce our readers to the different proposed dimensions of a creative object. Next, we explain recent developments on the level of the creativity magnitude issue. Based on this, we review how researchers currently operationalize creativity. After discussing how creativity is conceptualized and operationalized, we outline how it might be enhanced. Finally, we present an overview of the wide variety of methodological approaches currently used in creativity research. We close by calling for more interdisciplinary research and offering other suggestions for future directions.

How minimal executive feedback influences creative idea generation

The fixation effect is known as one of the most dominant of the cognitive biases against creativity and limits individuals’ creative capacities in contexts of idea generation. Numerous techniques and tools have been established to help overcome these cognitive biases in various disciplines ranging from neuroscience to design sciences. Several works in the developmental cognitive sciences have discussed the importance of inhibitory control and have argued that individuals must first inhibit the spontaneous ideas that come to their mind so that they can generate creative solutions to problems. In line with the above discussions, in the present study, we performed an experiment on one hundred undergraduates from the Faculty of Psychology at Paris Descartes University, in which we investigated a minimal executive feedback-based learning process that helps individuals inhibit intuitive paths to solutions and then gradually drive their ideation paths toward creativity. Our results provide new insights into novel forms of creative leadership for idea generation.

Multiple forms of applications and impacts of a design theory -ten years of industrial applications of C-K theory

C-K theory has been developed by Armand Hatchuel and Benoit Weil and then by other researchers since 1990s. In this paper we show that its very abstract nature and its high degree of universality actually supported a large variety of industrial applications. We distinguish three types of applications: 1) C-K theory provides a new language, that supports new analysis and descriptive capacity and new teachable individual models of thoughts; 2) C-K theory provides a very general framework to better characterize the validity domain and the performance conditions of existing methods, leading to potential improvement of these methods; 3) C-K theory is the conceptual model at the root of new design methods that are today largely used in the industry.

The Role of a Learning Approach in Building an Interorganizational Network Aiming for Collaborative Innovation

Collaboration has become a common way for organizational actors to engage in problem solving and innovation. Yet shifting from strategic interactions (driven by reduction of transaction costs) to transformational interaction (driven by collaborative transorganizational development) appears to be difficult to achieve in practice in a network setting. This article argues that such a shift can be enhanced by adopting an action learning approach, which entails working on real-life problems without clear solutions and collectively working to resolve them. Based on an action learning research process, this article therefore explores ways to support collective knowledge creation within an interorganizational network setting. It provides rich illustrations of how the interactions in the network changed through the process, and the participants moved from a space of territorial protection to a space for collaborative exploration. From this case, the article outlines a model for learning in interorganizational networks and discusses related challenges.