Open innovation with entrepreneurial users : evidence from living lab projects
Dimitri Schuurman, Aron-Levi Herregodts · Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) · 2017
Entrepreneurs are struggling to implement open innovation in their innovation processes.Innovation intermediaries assist them in this process by connecting them to internal and external knowledge sources.Living Labs are such organizations mediating between entrepreneurs and end-users via co-creation and real-life experimentation.However, little is known regarding the mediating process for different types of entrepreneurs.In this paper, we investigated two groups of entrepreneurs engaging in Living Lab projects: three (lead) user entrepreneurs and three opportunity entrepreneurs.Our findings suggest that 'Living-Labs-as-a-service' intermediaries match better with the characteristics of opportunity entrepreneurs, as user entrepreneurs tend to consider themselves as lead users drawing upon their own need and solution information, only taking into account knowledge on the 'future state', whereas opportunity entrepreneurs in a Living Lab setting are more flexible and willing to adapt and iterate in terms of the innovation itself as well as in terms of the business model.