Experiential Open Innovation and Co-creation

Assessment 3: Individual Final Report (30%) – ‘Experiential Open Innovation and Co-creation’
The concept of open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003) has developed in concert with the advent of new online technologies that have facilitated this approach (Howe, 2008).

There are three emerging models of crowd sourced innovation or co-creation:
1.    Crowdsourced competition – involves soliciting ideas or solutions from a wide range of contributors (Afuah and Tucci, 2012; Jeppesen and Lakhani, 2010). For

example, the Innocentive platform (http://www.innocentive.com/)
2.    Community-based competition – some firms have developed dedicated online communities as part of online competitions, where contributors may interact with each

other. For example, Threadless (www.threadless.com), Local Motors (www.localmotors.com), OpenIDEO (www.openideo.com)
3.    Open source co-innovation – is what some describe as the ‘ideal type’ of co-created value in use. Here the product or service is created by the users for the

users. It is both open in the process of the creation of the service and open in the outcome. Examples of open source co- innovation, the most open of the open-

innovation approaches include Linux operating system and also Wikipedia (Boudreau and Lakhani, 2009).
In the last decade, open innovation practices have increasingly attracted research and practitioner interest. Pedersen (2010) outlines a number of empirical studies

that have demonstrated the relevance of open innovation techniques (e.g. Huston and Sakkab, 2006, Rohrbeck and Hoelzle 2009; Dodgson and Gann 2006; Chesbrough and

Crowther 2006) yet others have found varied results regarding the relationship between open innovation and firm performance, thereby concluding that evidence is

inconclusive regarding the effectiveness of open innovation techniques. Furthermore as Chen et al (2011) outline, the shift towards openness fundamentally changes

value creation in the business model. These types of open innovation and open co-innovation challenge some of the basic tenets of traditional business innovation

strategy, especially the need to have ownership over the resources that are applied to create new value (Chesbrough and Appleyard 2007).
Your report is to be no more than 1500 words. You need to demonstrate an understanding of open innovation and co-innovation, document your real participation and

engagement, and based on your experience and readings, reflect on the implications for organisations such as firm strategy, performance, idea generation, business

models, intellectual property protection etc. It will be

BACKGROUND

TASK
Your task is to participate in an online open innovation platform. You are to participate in the process over the duration of the semester and produce a report and

analysis based on your experience, the strengths and weaknesses of these platforms, and open and ‘co-innovation’ more broadly.

important to engage several times over the course of the semester i.e. you can see what the public think of your contributions, or follow a participant over time to

provide a valuable report on how this process works and its impact. You won’t be able to produce a high quality reflection and report by visiting a website in Week 14!

You will be assessed as follows:

Participation and Engagement in online open innovation platform
–  Frequency and intensity of engagement
–  Evidence of engagement (interaction with community members; ratings; ?postings/discussion boards/forums; screen shots etc)
–  Quality of participation
15%

Organizational implications
–  Understanding of open innovation and co-innovation principles, debates ?in the relevant literature (see reference list)
–  Analysis of impact and value for organizational/firm strategy, structures, ?processes etc
–  Consideration of time and resources required to engage; challenges in ?engagement; community norms; public reaction to contributions etc
10%

Clarity of writing, grammar, spelling, references
5%

Tips
–  You may have more meaningful engagement (and hence a better report!) in platforms such as OpenIDEO, rather than simply rating t-shirts on

Threadless
–  You may like to strategically select the role you will play in an open innovation process. This will impact on your analysis. For example:
oYou may like to participate in multiple platforms and compare the experience?o You may like to review others’ participation on a current competition (e.g. Local
Motors), if you do not have the specific expertise required (e.g. if it requires
engineering expertise)?o You may like to both contribute to a platform (e.g. contribute content to Wikipedia)
and also review others’ content (e.g. Wikipedia)
–  You may like to include a timeline of your participation and significant events/interactions ?that occurred during your participation
–  You should consider engaging across the duration of the semester – rather than a once off ?visit to the website in Week 14! ?Possible

platforms (please check with tutor if you would like to explore others): ?www.openideo.com?www.threadless.com?www.localmotors.com?www.innocentive.com?www.quirky.com?

http://99designs.com.au/?http://www.ninesigma.com/?https://www.collaborationjam.com/ (IBM) http://www.kfcollaborationkitchen.com/EN/Pages/Home.aspx (Kraft)
**Or go here to access a list of over 100 open innovation/crowd sourcing sites: http://www.boardofinnovation.com/list-open-innovation-crowdsourcing-examples/
References and suggested readings for this final assignment:
Boudreau KJ and Lakhani KR. (2009) How to Manage Outside Innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review 50, 69-76
Chesbrough, H. (2003) The Era of Open Innovation. MIT Sloan Management Review, vol. 44, pp. 35- 42, 2003.
Chesbrough, H. (2011). Bringing open innovation to services. MIT Sloan Management Review, 52(2), 85-90.
Chesborough, H., and Appleyard, M. (2007) Open Innovation and Strategy. California Management Review. Vol. 50,NO. 1 Fall.
Chesbrough, H. and Crowther, A.K. (2006). Beyond high tech: early adopters of open innovation in other industries. R&D Management 36(3): 229-236.
Chen, J.S., Tsou, H.T., and Ching, R.Kk (2011). Co-production and its effects on service innovation. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(8), 1331-1346.
Christensen, J. F. (2006). Wither core competency for the large corporation in an open innovation world. Open innovation: researching a new paradigm. Oxford,

36.
Dahlander, L., and Gann, D.M. (2010). How open is innovation?.Research Policy, 39(6), 699-709. Dodgson, M. and Gann, D. (2006). The role of technology in the

shift towards open innovation: the
case of Procter & Gamble. R&D Management 36(3): 333-346.?Howe, J. (2008). Crowdsourcing: How the power of the crowd is driving the future of business.
Century.?Huston, L., & Sakkab, N. (2006). Connect and develop. Harvard business review, 84(3), 58-66. Lichtenthaler, U. (2011). Open innovation: Past research,

current debates, and future directions. The
Academy of Management Perspectives, 25(1), 75-93.?Rohrbeck, R., Hoelzle, K., & Gemünden, H. G. (2009). Opening up for competitive advantage–How
Deutsche Telekom creates an open innovation ecosystem. R&D Management, 39(4), 420-
430.?West, J., & Lakhani, K. R. (2008). Getting clear about communities in open innovation. Industry and
Innovation, 15(2), 223-231.