For a few decades now, firms have had to innovate in cooperation with other organizations. According to the literature on co-innovation, a new form of innovation partnership is now emerging: the exploratory partnership. This type of partnership is the most often established in the early stages of the design process and faces high levels of uncertainty and instability. This paper deals with a strategic design tool, OPERA, based on a recent general design theory named C-K theory. That theory models design reasoning by suggesting a fundamental distinction between concepts (propositions about novel objects) and knowledge (propositions about known objects). According to the theory, the interaction and co-evolution of concepts and knowledge is the main engine through which design progresses. The paper proposes to extend that theory to understand and to act in innovation community context. OPERA enables power holders and design teams to drive innovation projects by providing them with an overview of explored and unexplored concepts and of the activation and production of skills and knowledge. This cartographic system was tested by MINATEC IDEAs Laboratory, a Cross-Industry Exploratory Partnership, over a 15-month period. The innovative platform is composed of partners from different sectors (e.g., energy, technology research center, sports, telecommunications) and aims to build innovative projects and to devise new products and services based on micronanotechnologies. Facing such diversities, actors of MINATEC IDEAs Laboratory used OPERA to see how each project is progressing, the contribution of each project to the global exploration process, and the complementarities between the projects. Such representations enable the committee to identify the main value of a project, any knowledge gaps and the synergies between projects. From a collective point of view, OPERA permits to MINATEC IDEAs Laboratory's members to indicate their favorite concepts and knowledge areas and to estimate converging and diverging interests.
While scientists are stepping up their efforts to develop new technologies, the ability of firms to determine the value of their technologies by identifying potential applications has become a major challenge. This article focuses on a particular phase of technology development: the emergence phase. When a promising new technology first sees the light of day in a fundamental research laboratory, its target markets often seem plentiful but are ill-defined. The inability to produce prototypes or to identify potential users makes it difficult to explore potential commercial applications. On the basis of four micro-nanotechnologies case studies conducted within a multi-partner innovation project, this article aims to theoretically explain why the identification of applications from emerging technologies is not a trivial problem. That research analyses how technologists and non-experts interact during creative investigations into new applications. It shows that the technologists are victims of a form of cognitive fixation. Indeed, their beliefs and activities are guided by a stable cognitive representation of their technology: the presumed identity of technology.Based on a recent design framework, C-K Design Theory, the technological exploration process followed in our four case studies is modelled, and mechanisms to dismantle the presumed identity and to design an extended identity of technology are provided.
Purpose-Scholars and practitioners have both emphasized the importance of collaboration in innovation context. They have also largely acknowledged that the definition of common purpose is a major driver of successful collaboration, but surprisingly, researchers have put little effort into investigating the process whereby the partners define the common purpose. This research aims to explore the Generation of Common Purpose (GCP) in innovation partnerships. Design/methodology/approach-An action-research approach combined with modeling has been followed. Our research is based on an in-depth qualitative case study of a cross-industry exploratory partnership through which four partners, from very different arenas, aim to collectively define innovation projects based on micro-nanotechnologies. Based on a design reasoning framework, the mechanisms of GCP mechanism are depicted. Findings-Regarding GCP, two main interdependent facets are identified: (1) the determination of existing intersections between the parties' concept and knowledge spaces ('Matching'); (2) an introspective learning process that allows the parties to transforms those spaces ('Building'). Practical implications-The better understanding of the GCP and the specific notion of "C-K profiles", which is an original way to characterize each partner involved in a partnership, should improve the capabilities of organizations to efficiently define collaborative innovation projects. Originality/value-This article explores one of the cornerstones of successful collaboration in innovation: the process whereby several parties define the common purpose of their partnership.
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