Sustaining the Flow of External Ideas: The Role of Dual Social Identity across Communities and Organizations

This study examines how intermediaries, in general, and those with digital service platforms specifically, engage with clients to help them innovate their services within their service ecosystem. Based on an embedded, longitudinal case study, the results reveal the cumulative development and deployment of technological, marketing, and co‐creation capabilities by intermediaries, and how these capabilities allow intermediaries to engage with clients, so as to enable clients’ open service innovation despite their internal challenges. In turn, this article extends theory on service innovation by clarifying the role and function of intermediaries in service ecosystems in enabling clients to leverage open service innovation. Second, this study contributes to resource‐based scholarship by clarifying how these three sets of capabilities and their micro‐foundations relate to each other. Despite the obvious importance of technological capabilities, online intermediaries are more than just “virtual” service platform providers. The intermediary’s technological and marketing capabilities assist clients in dealing with project‐related and organizational challenges to open service innovation. Acting as a higher‐order capability, co‐creation capabilities—through shaping marketing and technological capabilities over time and also through conditioning their deployment—improve the proficiency of these capabilities. The findings advance insights on the agential role of the intermediary’s co‐creation capabilities, purposefully developed and deployed to foster client engagement, and thus support service organizations in leveraging open service innovation.

Section: Research Design and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 94%

Open Service Innovation: The Role of Intermediary Capabilities

Randhawa¹,

Wilden²,

Gudergan³

2018

“…Other emerging communities are rich with information that can be harnessed to address open innovation research questions. The transparency of some firms that rely heavily on open innovation tactics (e.g., Local Motors, Threadless) enables researchers to assemble valuable data and answer pressing contemporary open innovation questions (see Langner and Seidel, ). In particular, new sources of user innovation data are being generated due to the growth of remix culture , in which individuals view nearly all objects around them, including both digital and traditional products, not as fixed—but as continuously reworkable and improvable (Lessig, ).…”

Section: New Mechanisms Of Open Innovation and Opportunities For Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Under the Wide Umbrella of Open Innovation

Stanko¹,

Fisher²,

Bogers³

2017

116

“…Third, this article opens a new discussion of the implications of membership uncertainty within firm and innovation community collaborations. While some studies suggest that dual identity between firms and community participants may lead to path dependency between firm and community (e.g., Langner and Seidel, ), others argue that (membership) uncertainty can enable flexibility and change (e.g., Pors and Andersen, ; Lauritzen et al, ). Thus, future studies may further clarify the notion of a membership paradox within firm and innovation community collaborations and investigate the implications for innovation.…”

Section: Theoretical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Innovation Intermediaries in Firm‐Innovation Community Collaboration: Navigating the Membership Paradox

Lauritzen¹

2017

Research on user innovation shows that tensions in collaborations between firms and innovation communities can hinder innovation, and that innovation intermediaries can help resolve these tensions by bridging opposing interests. Despite the compelling role of innovation intermediaries, few studies on such mediation exist. Using an embedded case study, this article examines the role of an innovation intermediary that facilitates online innovation contests for client firms and identifies an apparent membership paradox evolving around three key tensions of power, competence, and identity. The article reveals that innovation intermediaries shape new understandings of power, competence, and identity that shift focus from resolving tensions to managing paradoxes. The membership paradox (re)appears at both the project level (between control and openness) and at the individual level, between professionalism and personality for employees and between imitation and authenticity for community participants. This article contributes to the user innovation literature by demonstrating how opposing firm and community interests are mediated through managing new forms of membership uncertainty. Moreover, the lens of paradox management offers a novel dimension to explaining why tensions that arise between firms and innovation communities are difficult to resolve, and also how the ensuing gaps in mutual understanding might be tackled. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings for user innovation researchers and practitioners are discussed.