Playful Collaboration (or Not): Using a Game to Grasp the Social Dynamics of Open Innovation in Innovation and Business Education

Abstract

This article explores how playing games can be used to teach intangible social interaction across boundaries, in particular within open collaborative innovation. We present an exploratory case study of how students learned from playing a board game in a graduate course of the international and interdisciplinary Innovation and Business master's program in Denmark. We identify several important themes related to the process of learning through playing and the social dynamics of open collaborative innovation, while we also highlight possible caveats of "playing" and practicing open innovation. Our findings imply several opportunities and challenges within education and beyond.

Toolkit‐Based Modelling and Serious Play as Means to Foster Creativity in Innovation Processes

“…Moreover, in open collaborative innovation processes playing can facilitate intangible social interaction across boundaries. Play addresses the cognitive, emotional and social dimension of learning (Bogers & Sproedt, 2012). Therefore, the role of play in organization is becoming increasingly important (Mainemelis & Altman, 2010;Sørensen & Spoelstra, 2012).…”

Business games and creativity: a bibliometric study and research themes

“…Publications profile. 5 2011Simulation and Gaming 5 1987, 2004Journal of Design Research 4 2006 business education (BOGERS;SPROEDT, 2012), showing a correlation between the results found. The importance of education in the research of this topic is well known, and its prominent role -with an index of more than 50% of the area's research focus -provides space for different approaches, such as those detailed in the table.…”

“…For Schön (1983) the game contains a cognitive process of reflection-by-action, involving 'learning by doing' and in which incipient ideas interact with the outcome of their attempts at expression. Bogers and Sproedt (2012) argue that games allow us to simulate the social dynamics in which we deal collaboratively with the novelty, and thus constitute a complex social experience, since during the game the understanding and relationships between the players emerge; this is because players need to accept the perspectives given by the game or create new purposes for what they do and the way they do it and therefore modify their perceptions and what they justify as true. This process defies all existing expectations and involves conflicts and failures before reaching success (BOGERS; SPROEDT, 2012).…”

“…Wolfe (1978);Keys and Wolfe (1990);Nakamura, Ohsawa and Nishio (2010);Kostomaj and Boh (2010);Bogers and Sproedt (2012);Lau (2012);Karime et al (2012);Chuang, Liu and Shiu (2014); Corredor, Gaydos and Squire(2014); Evain and De Marco (2014); Ihamäki (2014); Adrian (2014); Agogué, Levillain and Hooge (2015); Robson et al (2015); Beuk (2015); Bressler and Bodzin (2016); Geithner and Menzel (2016); Kutbiddinova, Eromasova and Romanova (2016); Lamb (and Locke (1985); Keys and Wolfe (1990); Schwartz and Teach (2002); Hemzo and Lepsch (2006); Johns and Shaw (2006); Bogers and Sproedt (2012); Lau (2012); Rivera, Domenico and Sauaia (2014); Wright (2015); Ozkan-Canbolat and Beraha (2016); Bressler, Bodzin (2016); Geithner and Menzel (2016). Business Education 21 33% House (1970); Wolfe (1978); Schweiger, Anderson and Locke (1985); Keys and Wolfe (1990); Savolainen (1997); Schwartz and Teach (2002); Bots and Hofstede; (2004); Bos, Shami and Naab (2006); Hemzo and Lepsch(2006); Jones (2007); Miller, Olleros and Molinié (2008); Bogers and Sproedt (2012); Minina and Nikitina (2012); Mihai-Yiannaki and Savvides (2012); Ceschi, Dorofeeva and Sartori (2014); Ceschi et al (2014); Gudiksen (2015); Beuk (2015); Geithner and Menzel (2016); Ozkan-Canbolat and Beraha (2016); Soeiro, Santos and Alves (2016).…”

Expensive or expansive? Learning the value of boundary crossing in design projects

“…It is difficult to promote confrontation, especially when they can team up to divide the assignment into separate tasks and get a reasonable group grade out of it. Business simulations and concept design games have been tried in design education to provoke such a confrontation (Chanin and Shapiro, 1985;Habraken and Gross, 1988;Sacks et al, 2007;Bogers and Sproedt, 2012); however, they are typically based on abstract combinatory systems, with finite sets, which does not stimulate the creation of knowledge beyond the possible combinations, in other words, expansion (Hatchuel, 2001;Engeström, 2015). These games do not induce enough differences to make strong tensions and boundaries emerge between players; in fact, players more or less follow the same rules and display similar strategies.…”