The Evolution of Intermediary Activities: Broadening the Concept of Facilitation in Living Labs

Abstract

Innovation intermediaries play an important role in open innovation endeavours. In living lab projects, where different professional identities and organizational cultures are at play, intermediary actors facilitate learning between stakeholders and manage tensions and conflicts of interest. The current living lab literature recognizes the importance and multifacetedness of these actors, but does not shed light on the work they do at a more practical level. Our study seeks to capture the variety and evolution of work tasks of user-side innovation intermediaries during and after a four-year technology project in a living lab. The study explores how these mediating actors tackle the everyday challenges of a living lab project. This article is grounded on a longitudinal qualitative case study of a innovation process for a floor monitoring system for elderly care – the smart floor. It is hardly possible to overrate the value… of placing human beings in contact with persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar. … Such communication has always been… one of the primary sources of progress.