Firms are constantly looking for more effective ways to improve their innovative and creative processes. Previous research has emphasized the combination of diverse knowledge assets and skills as an essential element for innovation. Recently, the diffusion of social networks and social media and the increasing familiarity of new generations of managers, employees and other stakeholders toward them, can increase this possibility. From one side, firm’s stakeholders are more likely to share within the Web opinions, experiences and knowledge related to firm’s activities. From the other side, the familiarity of manager and employees with social media can support firms to open their organizational boundaries to the online environment exploiting innovative and creative ideas . In this paper we conceive firms as open systems and we focus on innovation ‘from the outside’, highlighting the role of so called ‘online communities of creation’. Valuable ideas can come from inside or outside the firm and can go to market from inside or outside the firm as well (Chesbrough, 2006). Therefore innovative ideas can come from inside the firm (as suggested by ‘close innovation’ model) and/or outside the firm (as suggested by the approach known as ‘open innovation’). We argue that the ‘open innovation’ approach, from one side, and the Web 2.0 technologies, from the other side, can foster the exploration and exploitation of knowledge, contributing to increase the firm’s innovation process. The exploration and exploitation of external knowledge is linked to the concept of ‘absorptive capacity’, seen as the ability of a firm to recognize the value of external knowledge, assimilate it and apply it to commercial ends (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). As open systems, organizations interact with their online environment and their ‘absorptive capacity’ determines the possibility to innovate beyond firm’s boundaries. Our research questions arise as follow: which is the role played by online communities within the innovation process? Can online communities contributing to effectively increase the firm’s innovation process? To answer these questions we selected a representative case study, Roland DG Mid Europe, a firm that significantly has invested on an online community to foster the innovation process. Roland’s internal innovation process significantly benefits from ideas coming from the outside, from the online community, through idea generation, feedbacks on product and services, product evaluations and testing, feedbacks on practicability about new uses and new applications of existing products in different fields and markets.

When Innovation Resides Outside the Firm Too: The Case of Roland Online Community

FRANCESCONI, ALBERTO
2011-01-01

Abstract

Firms are constantly looking for more effective ways to improve their innovative and creative processes. Previous research has emphasized the combination of diverse knowledge assets and skills as an essential element for innovation. Recently, the diffusion of social networks and social media and the increasing familiarity of new generations of managers, employees and other stakeholders toward them, can increase this possibility. From one side, firm’s stakeholders are more likely to share within the Web opinions, experiences and knowledge related to firm’s activities. From the other side, the familiarity of manager and employees with social media can support firms to open their organizational boundaries to the online environment exploiting innovative and creative ideas . In this paper we conceive firms as open systems and we focus on innovation ‘from the outside’, highlighting the role of so called ‘online communities of creation’. Valuable ideas can come from inside or outside the firm and can go to market from inside or outside the firm as well (Chesbrough, 2006). Therefore innovative ideas can come from inside the firm (as suggested by ‘close innovation’ model) and/or outside the firm (as suggested by the approach known as ‘open innovation’). We argue that the ‘open innovation’ approach, from one side, and the Web 2.0 technologies, from the other side, can foster the exploration and exploitation of knowledge, contributing to increase the firm’s innovation process. The exploration and exploitation of external knowledge is linked to the concept of ‘absorptive capacity’, seen as the ability of a firm to recognize the value of external knowledge, assimilate it and apply it to commercial ends (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). As open systems, organizations interact with their online environment and their ‘absorptive capacity’ determines the possibility to innovate beyond firm’s boundaries. Our research questions arise as follow: which is the role played by online communities within the innovation process? Can online communities contributing to effectively increase the firm’s innovation process? To answer these questions we selected a representative case study, Roland DG Mid Europe, a firm that significantly has invested on an online community to foster the innovation process. Roland’s internal innovation process significantly benefits from ideas coming from the outside, from the online community, through idea generation, feedbacks on product and services, product evaluations and testing, feedbacks on practicability about new uses and new applications of existing products in different fields and markets.
2011
9788889677766
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11571/1105356
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