Abstract
Innovation contests are increasingly used by businesses as an instrument for open innovation to address sustainability related questions. However, according to the open innovation literature, one of the main pitfalls of this approach can be the mismatch between the solutions proposed by non-experts and the companies’ capabilities to implement such solutions. We introduce the concept of collaborative innovation contests – where companies actively collaborate with non-experts – as a way to address this mismatch. Through participant observations, we analyse the process of a sustainability-oriented collaborative innovation contest guided by design-thinking. Our results indicated that the combination of an open innovation contest and design thinking could, through the creation of constant feedback loops, lead to increased collaboration between the contests participants, the companies proposing a challenge, and other relevant stakeholders. However, our results also highlighted trade-offs between the innovativeness of ideas, the alignment of solutions with firm capabilities and the resources needed for collaborative innovation contests. We conclude that, through the involvement of different stakeholders, their ideas and perspectives, collaborative innovation contests are a useful approach to generate a comprehensive understanding of the sustainability challenges companies face.
Highlights
Sustainability oriented innovation (SOI) can assist firms in adopting sustainable practices through the innovation of products, processes and organizational initiatives to realize sustainability objectives (Klewitz and Hansen, 2014)
We suggest that collaborative innovation contests can be a promising tool to accelerate SOI in businesses which lack open innovation capa bilities
The combination of open innovation contests and design thinking (DT) has received little attention in the literature. Our investigation of this empirical context indicated that the combination of an open innovation contest and DT could lead to increased collaboration between the participants of a challenge, the companies posting a challenge, and other parties with relevant infor mation for a challenge including users and experts in the field
Summary
Sustainability oriented innovation (SOI) can assist firms in adopting sustainable practices through the innovation of products, processes and organizational initiatives to realize sustainability objectives (Klewitz and Hansen, 2014). Open innovation in the form of ‘innovation contests open to the public’ is considered effective at addressing sustainability challenges (e.g., Hansen et al, 2011) and can potentially accelerate SOI (Klewitz and Hansen, 2014). In these innovation contests, a firm facing an innovation-related problem posts this problem to a population of independent agents and provides an award to those that generate the best solution (Terwiesch and Xu, 2008). Involving the public in innovation contests can help firms to gain an understanding of society’s needs and nurture a trust-based dialogue (Ghassim and Bogers, 2019)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
