Innovation Contests Research Articles

Implications of team submissions in open innovation contests

Abstract Since the early aughts, open innovation platforms such as InnoCentive and HeroX have helped seekers (firms, SMEs, startups) develop and launch open innovation contests by inviting external (independent) solvers to submit their solutions. In an open innovation contest, an award is given to the top-quality submission, where the quality of each submission depends on two salient factors: (1) the costly effort(s) exerted by the solver(s); and (2) the random innovative shock(s) generated by the solver(s). Hence, highly novel contests are shock-driven, whereas less novel contests are effort-driven. In this paper, we examine if and when the platform (and the seekers) should encourage team submissions instead of individual submissions. We analyze a game-theoretic model of an open innovation contest associated with a decomposable problem and compare the equilibrium outcomes for two cases when solvers can make only: (a) individual submissions, and (b) team submissions. Solvers prefer team submissions due to free-riding and reduced competition (fewer submissions), which can afford them to reduce their effort(s). Consequently, team submissions may result in low-quality submissions, which are detrimental to the seekers. Even so, due to random shocks, we find team submissions are beneficial to the seekers when the seeker’s problem is less novel and the solver’s effort cost is sufficiently high. In addition, even when the seeker’s problem is highly novel, we find that team submissions can benefit the seekers when team submissions can attract sufficiently more external solvers to counteract the two negative effects associated with free-riding and reduced competition. Our results continue to hold when the reward level is endogenously determined.

Building more entrepreneurial organizations through external innovation contests

AbstractFirms are increasingly adopting innovation contests to obtain ideas for new products and services from external parties, but many firms may not be sufficiently entrepreneurial to benefit from those ideas. Using an inductive longitudinal case study of three financial service firms, we explore the value of external innovation contests for less entrepreneurial and stagnant firms. Our findings indicate that stagnant firms indeed struggle to benefit from ideas generated through external innovation contests. However, we also show that firms undergo a structural change process toward higher entrepreneurial orientation through such contests. In particular, they become aware of an organizational readiness gap and act on it by (i) developing entrepreneurial skills, (ii) collaborating with external partners, and (iii) adapting organizational design and governance. Based on our findings, we propose an original framework for a corporate entrepreneurial learning process triggered by the innovation contest experience.

Designing noise barriers with additional purpose - five examples

Designing noise barriers with additional purpose gives more value to the built environment. Built examples are described in this paper with design process and resulting effect. The examples presented briefly below serve as inspiration on how to design barriers with additional purpose. For an innovation contest, which required a sustainable solution, a 3D printed shot-earth barrier was designed that could be created from the soil in the surroundings. For a park where safety was required a low T-shaped brick barrier was designed to keep visibility into the park. For a planned playground, next to a ferry advancement area, a barrier and a surround system with added jungle sounds was designed. In pursuit to increase barrier technical service life, an added device was designed to increase noise reducing effect and protection of the barrier. In another innovation contest a combined solution for air quality and noise was required. The proposed solution was a sonic crystal made of a bioreactor algae farm and vegetation added on noise barrier. The examples are shown in this paper with description, test results and images.

Self-organized or meta-organized contests? The two faces of innovation contests in digital product innovation

Unlike traditional centralized innovation within a firm, digital innovation is more distributed and involves many heterogeneous innovators within a society. A key challenge is the personalized governance of different innovators. We explored how innovation contests affected digital product innovation across multiple innovators, using a self- or meta-organized contest. Using a dataset of 17,985 innovators, 14,734 innovation contests, and 212,767 digital products from 2015 to 2022, we found that a self-organized contest increases the originality and popularity of digital products, whereas a meta-organized contest decreases these outcomes. An innovation contest is a valuable governance tool for digital innovation, but it backfires when there is a mismatch with a particular innovator. Specifically, the self-organized contest is more helpful for experts’ and openers’ digital product innovation, but not for novices’ or conservatives’ innovation. The opposite is true for meta-organized contests. This study contributes to contest management and personalized governance in digital innovation.

The potential of innovation contests in articulating demand for system-level transformation: The case of the Helsinki Energy Challenge

As local authorities and providers of services and infrastructures, cities can advance sustainability transformations through instruments like public procurement. However, a disconnect exists between broad (supra)national sustainability challenges and public procurers’ local needs. We examine innovation contests as a tool for articulating societal challenges as local demands for innovation. We study Helsinki Energy Challenge, where the city of Helsinki, Finland, sought solutions for decarbonizing its heating system, offering a million-euro reward. We explore how innovation contest-related activities contribute to articulating demand for system innovation locally and their influence on participants’ problem-solving approaches. The case demonstrates how innovation contests could localise demand for sustainable solutions and direct innovation processes toward a societal challenge, while supporting solutions’ broader scalability. We identify six demand articulation activities: expressing strategic intent, scoping, boundary-setting, user-producer interaction, evaluation, and embedding. We enhance understanding of demand articulation processes for system innovation and the potential of innovation contests for transformative innovation missions.

Optimization model for fair judging of large-scale innovation contests based on experts’ neutral weights

The group decision-making method and standard score method are commonly used for evaluating large-scale innovative contest entries. However, the standard score method assumes that the quality distribution of entries evaluated by each expert remains consistent, which is difficult to achieve in practice due to different experts reviewing different entries. To enhance fairness in judging results for such contests, we propose an improved standard score method based on weighting. First, we establish a mathematical model for cross-assignment of entries and design an algorithm to solve it while discussing one property on its optimal solution. This model enables any two experts to be assigned as many identical entries as possible, facilitating reliable pairwise comparisons matrix while avoiding assigning the best or worst entries to multiple experts in one judgment. Second, inspired by cross entropy concepts, we introduce a definition of “cross entropy-like” and establish a mathematical model using this concept along with minimum sum of squared errors method to determine neutral weights for experts. Finally, experiments demonstrate that our proposed improved standard score method is more scientific and reasonable than traditional standard score method while enhancing objectivity and fairness of evaluation results.

Iterative Problem Development Process in Startup Innovation Contests

Iterative Problem Development Process in Startup Innovation Contests

CORPORATE INNOVATION SYSTEMS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT IN KAZAKHSTAN

In modern research, the corporate innovation system is one of the most actively studied industries. The purpose of the article is to determine the impact and importance of the corporate innovation system on the economic efficiency of the company, to consider the development of corporate innovation systems in Kazakhstan. In the article, we will study the importance of corporate innovation systems in the modern business landscape. The key aspects highlighting the importance of an innovative culture in the corporate sector, including stimulating competitiveness, attracting and retaining talent, are discussed. And consider various models of the corporate innovation system, such as open innovation ecosystems, innovation contests and accelerators, and Intrapreneurship. The article examines the current trends in the development of corporate innovations. The main focus is on the role of corporate innovation in the economic development of the country and the identification of possible ways to improve innovation activity in the business environment of Kazakhstan. The foreign experience of corporate innovation systems was also reviewed. Innovative corporate systems in domestic companies are investigated. Keywords: innovation, corporate innovations, corporate innovation system, open innovation, innovation activity.

Preface: 2nd International Conference on Portfolios, Economy and Enterprise Reform (PEER 2024)

This book collects papers selected from the 2024 2nd International Conference on Portfolios, Economy and Enterprise Reform (PEER 2024), which was successfully held in Kobe, Japan from March 16-17, 2024. PEER 2024 welcomes researchers, experts, economist, and industry professionals to an open forum where advances in the fields of portfolios, risk management, financial security, regional economic, marketing, business management, and enterprise reform can be shared and examined. The conference is an ideal platform for keeping up with advances and changes to a consistently morphing field. Leading researchers and industry experts from around the globe will be presenting the latest studies through papers and oral presentations. PEER 2024 invites scholars and researchers all over the world to discuss the state-of-the-art and the development of the financial technology. The conference set up a variety of activities such as general report, session report, poster exchanging, technical exhibition and technological innovation contest. This conference provided delegates with a good opportunity to exchange new ideas, establish research and/or business contacts, and establish potential partnerships for global partnerships. With best regards, Organizing Committees of PEER Kobe, Japan

Patient-Centered Innovation: Involving Patients in Open Social Innovation.

Involving patients in the health-care delivery innovation has many benefits. Open social innovation (OSI) presents a fitting lens to examine and advance patient engagement in innovation. OSI offers a participatory approach to innovation, in which diverse groups of participants collaboratively generate ideas and scale solutions on complex social challenges. This study: (1) describes a pilot application of OSI, in which individuals serving on a hospital's patients and family advisory councils (PFACs) were invited to participate in an innovation contest; and (2) explores the extent to which patients' beliefs about their role in innovation relate to their participation in the contest. We conducted an innovation contest that invited PFAC members to share ideas that would improve patient experiences and then vote on and select the ideas that they wanted to see move forward. We measured patients' beliefs about their role in innovation in a survey before the contest. Twenty individuals submitted 27 ideas. Patients who expressed preference for more involvement in innovation were more likely to participate. Using OSI may help expand patient engagement in innovation, particularly among those who want to be more involved but do not feel authorized to voice ideas in traditional advisory committees. OSI spurred collaboration among patients, clinicians, quality improvement staff, hospital administrators, and other stakeholders in idea generation, elaboration, and implementation. More experimentation and research are needed to understand how OSI can be leveraged to capture patients' voice and incorporate them in care delivery innovation.

Follow the leader (or not): the influence of superstars on crowd size in crowdsourcing contests

PurposeAs the application of crowdsourcing contests grows, leveraging the participation of superstars (i.e. solvers who have outstanding performance records in a crowdsourcing platform) becomes an emergent approach for managers to solve crowdsourced problems. Although much is known about superstars’ performance implications, it remains unclear whether and how their participation affects the size of a contest crowd for a crowdsourcing contest. Based on social contagion theory, this paper aims to examine the impact of superstars’ participation on the crowd size and studies how this impact varies across solvers with different heterogeneity in terms of skills, exposure and cultural proximity with superstars in crowdsourcing contests.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses secondary data from one crowdsourcing platform that includes 6,587 innovation contests to examine superstars’ main and contextual effects on the crowd size of a contest.FindingsOur results reveal that superstars’ participation positively affects the crowd size of a contest in general. This finding suggests that social contagion is a fundamental mechanism underlying crowd formation in crowdsourcing contests. Our results also indicate that in contests that involve multiple superstars, superstars’ effect on crowd size becomes negative when we simultaneously consider other solvers’ heterogeneity in terms of skills, exposure and cultural background, and this negative effect will be intensified by increases in the skill gap, extent of exposure and cultural proximity between superstars and other solvers in the same contest.Originality/valueOur research enhances the understanding of the influence of superstars and the mechanism underlying the emergence of contest crowds in crowdsourcing contests and contributes knowledge to better understand social contagion in a competitive setting. The results are meaningful for sourcing managers and platform supervisors to design contests and supervise crowd size in crowdsourcing contests.

Performance enhancement in two‐stage innovation contests: Feedback and elimination schemes

AbstractInnovation is one of the driving forces of economic development and social progress, and the crowdsourcing contest is a well‐established mechanism for encouraging innovation. This paper examines two incentive schemes in two‐stage innovation contests: feedback and elimination. Feedback enhances the efforts by revealing the competitive status, and elimination intensifies the competition by removing less‐qualified participants. We build a game theoretical model to investigate how the organizer should design the feedback and elimination schemes and then analyze the equilibrium efforts and optimal contest design in four‐solver contests. The results suggest that the optimal design depends on the combined effects of the reward, effort sensitivity, and cost coefficiency. Elimination and nonelimination contests can be optimal under different conditions. Furthermore, we extend the equilibrium analysis to competitions with contestants and investigate the optimal design with numerical studies. The most interesting result is that the elimination contest with feedback from the organizer is an ideal option for a budget‐constrained enterprise that seeks an innovative solution from the public for a complex innovation project. Also, the optimal number of contestants in the second stage is not always two when feedback is combined with elimination.

Bio Mathematical Analysis on the Evaluation Scheme for Large Scale Innovation Competition

Large-scale innovation contests are becoming increasingly popular globally, with many innovators and enterprises actively participating. Work allocation optimization and fair judging are two significant concerns in innovation contests. This academic paper aims to recommend an optimized” cross-assignment” program by leveraging the optimal objective function method to improve the comparability of scores given by various judges. We conducted data-based descriptive statistical analysis and concluded that the two-stage and weighted evaluation schemes are more beneficial than the traditional judging scheme. Nonetheless, there are still some shortcomings that require addressing. To enhance fairness, we propose an improved two-stage evaluation scheme. In the first stage, we normalize the scores with a normal distribution. In the second stage of the process, we implement a system utilizing the Borda sorting technique to categorize submissions into five distinct groups for judges to evaluate based on their perceptions. We also detail a method for weighting tied scores to determine the final rankings. Testing indicates that this approach yields a Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG) of 0.8667, implying greater fairness and precision in the assessment of submissions.

Requirements, Objectives, Both, or Neither: How to Formulate Complex Design Problems for Innovation Contests

Abstract Technical organizations increasingly rely on innovation contests to find novel ideas for designing complex systems. These activities involve outsiders in the early stages of the design process, leading to ground-breaking designs that often surpass expectations. Here, the contest’s rules document plays a crucial role: this design artifact communicates the organization’s problem and the desired system performance to the participants—significantly impacting the resulting solutions. However, the contest’s nature amplifies the challenges of communicating complex design problems across boundaries. Existing strategies for formulating—i.e., requirement and objective allocation—might not suit this context. We developed an inductive model of their formulation process based on a multiyear field study of five complex innovation contests. We found that a formulation team (or “seeker”) balanced the need to communicate their problem in detail with the risk of excluding valuable participants. Here, they chose among three approaches—incentivize, impose, or subsume—depending on their knowledge of potential solutions and the participants’ capabilities. Notably, the seeker formulated more granularly than the literature describes, employing multiple approaches within each rules document. These findings shed light on a poorly understood aspect of innovation contests, shed new light on a longstanding debate in the engineering design literature, and guide practitioners’ formulation processes.

An analysis of reward mechanism and knowledge sharing for crowdsourcing-based open innovation contest

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate both the impact of different reward types and the adoption of knowledge-sharing practice on a crowdsourcing-based open innovation contest. Despite the benefit of knowledge sharing, contestants could struggle to find a balance between knowledge sharing and knowledge protection in open innovation.Design/methodology/approachThe authors' approach follows a stylised contest model in a game-theoretical setting in which contestants first decide on their efforts and then the contest sponsor chooses the winner. Moreover, the outcome of an open innovation contest is delineated as either intermediate goods that require further refinement and risk-taking versus a market-ready end product for the contest sponsor. The authors also investigate how knowledge sharing among contestants would be influenced by reward types such as fixed-monetary prizes vs performance-contingent awards.FindingsThe contest sponsor will lower the prize level after adopting knowledge sharing. Therefore, the total effort will decline regardless of the reward type. Moreover, the choice of reward types depends on the contest sponsor's characteristics because the performance-contingent award is suitable for a large market size but the fixed-monetary prize can more efficiently raise the quantity of contestant inputs.Originality/valuePrior studies have tested the connection between contest performance and knowledge sharing in crowdsourcing-based contests; however, there is not an integrated framework to best design the operation of a contest when considering different reward types and knowledge-sharing practices.

Examining the Impacts of Crowd Size and Crowd Diversity on Solution Quality in Innovation Contests

Examining the Impacts of Crowd Size and Crowd Diversity on Solution Quality in Innovation Contests

Cooperating in Innovation Contests: Effects and Boundary Conditions of Competitive Reward Structures

Cooperating in Innovation Contests: Effects and Boundary Conditions of Competitive Reward Structures

Birds of a Feather Crowd Together: Skill-Based Self-Selection in Crowdsourcing Innovation Contests

Birds of a Feather Crowd Together: Skill-Based Self-Selection in Crowdsourcing Innovation Contests

Using Innovation Contests to Increase Employee Voice: A Field Experiment in Community Health Centers

Using Innovation Contests to Increase Employee Voice: A Field Experiment in Community Health Centers

Ideas from the Frontline: Improvement Opportunities in Federally Qualified Health Centers.

Engaging frontline clinicians and staff in quality improvement is a promising bottom-up approach to transforming primary care practices. This may be especially true in federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and similar safety-net settings where large-scale, top-down transformation efforts are often associated with declining worker morale and increasing burnout. Innovation contests, which decentralize problem-solving, can be used to involve frontline workers in idea generation and selection. We aimed to describe the ideas that frontline clinicians and staff suggested via organizational innovation contests in a national sample of 54 FQHCs. Innovation contests solicited ideas for improving care from all frontline workers-regardless of professional expertise, job title, and organizational tenure and excluding those in senior management-and offered opportunities to vote on ideas. A total of 1,417 frontline workers across all participating FQHCs generated 2,271 improvement opportunities. We performed a content analysis and organized the ideas into codes (e.g., standardization, workplace perks, new service, staff relationships, community development) and categories (e.g., operations, employees, patients). Ideas from frontline workers in participating FQHCs called attention to standardization (n = 386, 17%), staffing (n = 244, 11%), patient experience (n = 223, 10%), staff training (n = 145, 6%), workplace perks (n = 142, 6%), compensation (n = 101, 5%), new service (n = 92, 4%), management-staff relationships (n = 82, 4%), and others. Voting results suggested that staffing resources, standardization, and patient communication were key issues among workers. Innovation contests generated numerous ideas for improvement from the frontline. It is likely that the issues described in this study have become even more salient today, as the COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating impacts on work environments and health/social needs of patients living in low-resourced communities. Continued work is needed to promote learning and information exchange about opportunities to improve and transform practices between policymakers, managers, and providers and staff at the frontlines.