Abstract
Rapid globalization and technological innovation have triggered a new era of challenges and opportunities, compelling stakeholders across various domains to engage in increasingly complex innovation processes. Traditional closed innovation models have become insufficient as no single stakeholder can hold all relevant knowledge or anticipate every technological advancement to meet future demands (De Silva & Wright, 2019; Ambos & Tatarinov, 2022; Dieste et al., 2022; Sarangee et al., 2022). In response, the paradigm has shifted towards Open Innovation (OI), emphasizing stakeholder co-creation of technological tools, routines, products, and even business models (Chesbrough, 2003; Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004; Agogué, et al., 2013; Dougherty, 2017; Osorno-Hinojosa et al., 2022).
Despite OI's growing traction, existing research, largely from an organizational-centric lens, overlooks the emergent and relational process of stakeholder co-creation. This perspective misses the essence of co-creation, where stakeholders—ranging from academia and corporates to public institutions and citizens—venture beyond conventional boundaries to innovate jointly. The literature signals a gap in understanding who engages in OI and the entrepreneurialsm driving their co-creation efforts (West et al., 2014; De Silva & Wright, 2019). Addressing this gap, our research delves into stakeholders entrepreneuring efforts within OI, exploring how they challenge the status quo and creatively reassemble practices to co-create novel solutions (Hjorth, 2014; Garcia-Lorenzo et al., 2018). Our study explores the various challenges stakeholders encounter, mapping out how stakeholder involvement in OI co-creation processes.
To investigate these dynamics, this paper presents a two-year qualitative case study at ekipa, a start-up managing OI programs that bring together political, academic, and organizational stakeholders within a global innovation ecosystem. ekipa's process fosters societal and social change through OI co-creation. By embedding innovation programs in universities and engaging diverse actors ranging from researchers over startups to organizations and political institutions, ekipa facilitates the organic transition of stakeholders into tangible co-creation spaces, visibilizing the fluid and complex nature of OI. Through field notes, diary entries, interviews, and various artifacts, this longitudinal study visibilizes the unfolding entrepreneuring process in OI, offering insights into organizing such emergent and dynamic co-creation efforts.