Resolving the Debate on Competition and Collaboration in Open Innovation Crowds
Allan N. Afuah, Johann Fueller, Karim R. Lakhani, Jan Marco Leimeister, Ann Majchrzak · Academy of Management Proceedings · 2014
Research on open innovation crowds is flourishing. Such large and diverse crowds of previously unconnected individuals offer organizations novel means to solve problems and to improve innovation performance. Scholars heavily debate about the role of competition and collaboration in such open innovation crowds. On the one hand, competitive contests can result in highly marginal solutions as rivalry is driving performance. On the other hand, supporting collaboration within open innovation crowds unlocks the individual’s cooperative behavior, draws upon their intrinsic motives, and creates the potential to create novel solutions through collaborative exchange of experiences and perspectives. However, collaboration also bears significant constraints such as free riding and loss of control over intellectual assets. This panel will aim to resolve the debate on competition and collaboration in open innovation crowds. To do so, it brings together highly reputed scholars in the field to discuss five major themes that are essential to find a resolution: 1) incentives in competition and collaboration 2) contingencies factors shaping performance of collaboration and competition 3) competition and collaboration as network-level phenomenon 4) the role of technologies and information systems in affording collaboration and competition and 5) the need for co-creation in open innovation crowds and governance & facilitation practices for them. For each of these five themes, one panelist will ignite the debate of the panel via a short contribution and invite other panelist as well as the audience to respond to it. They will draw on different theoretical perspectives and their empirical research across a range of sectors and types of organizations. After the panel discussion, the audience will be invited to propose additional perspectives. The panel will propose a future research agenda, and connect this agenda to the broader research on open innovation and open collaboration.