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Master thesis Business Administration, Specialization: Strategy & Organization Supervisor: Prof. Dr. T. Elfring Joost de Boer Student number 1517597 Referring to the involvement of not just customers but mostly stakeholders in co-‐creation projects, it was already shortly discussed that some organizations mentioned the involvement of employees in co-‐creation projects instead of customers. In addition, co-‐creation was also used to source for potential collaborative opportunities with other organizations inside and outside the value chain, mostly involving higher management levels. Hence, where most of the theory only refers to the involvement of customers in co-‐creation projects, it can now be stated that it is better to refer to the involvement of ‘stakeholders’. Considering the importance of dialogue in the concept of co-‐creation and the multiple purposes it can be used for, co-‐creation allows organizations to involve far more parties than just customers. § 5.3 USED TYPES OF CO-CREATION Key findings: no use was made of the Community of Kindred Spirits. In addition, one new type of co-‐creation was identified unexpectedly: internal co-‐creation. Co-‐creation literature roughly distinguishes two dimensions that can be used to differentiate between different types of co-‐creation: openness and ownership. While the ‘openness’ describes the level of accessibility of the project for participants (selection vs. no or few selection), the ‘ownership’ dimension refers to the ownership of the content and the intellectual property that was generated in the co-‐creation project. Four types of co-creation were identified: Club of Experts, Crowd of People, Coalition of Parties and the Community of Kindred Spirits. Combined with the empirical results, two interesting observations can be made. First, the empirical research showed that the ‘Community of Kindred Spirits’ was not used by any organization. It may be assumed that this type of co-‐creation is mostly suitable for non-‐profit purposes such as open source software. These communities are open to anyone, and its generated content is owned by anyone, making it less attractive for commercial activities. However, it might also prove to be an opportunity for organizations to engage in a dialogue or cooperation with other parties beyond their direct interests, discussing topics like sustainability. Second, although the four types proved to be able to distinguish different types out of several co-‐creation projects, there also appeared to be a shortcoming in the model: the use of co-‐creation for internal purposes was not explicitly mentioned at all. It might be that this kind of co-‐creation proves to be a good example of the Community of Kindred Spirits, as it is open to and owned by everyone in the same organization. However, several other types of co-‐creation might also be used for internal co-‐creation, such as the Club of Experts or the Crowd of People. Herein, two perspectives can be identified: one that accounts for a hybrid form of internal co-‐creation – allowing for the use of all four types while emphasizing that there is no difference between co-‐creation for internal or ‘external’ purposes. The second scenario then holds that internal co-‐creation is a new, unique type that should be used different from the other four types that organizations are already familiar with. Either way, it is a subject that should receive increased attention as multiple interviewees praised the connective and collaborative nature of co-‐creation. 67
Master thesis Business Administration, Specialization: Strategy & Organization Supervisor: Prof. Dr. T. Elfring Joost de Boer Student number 1517597 § 5.4 CO-CREATION IN THE NPD-PROCESS Comparing the results of the literature review and the empirical section of this research, it appeared that the use of co-‐creation affected the traditional new product development process. The main differences between theory and practice of each specific phase in the NPD-‐process are presented here, along with an overview of the potential influences the introduction of co-‐creation might have. Idea generation phase: choosing for an open or narrow scope Considering the use of co-‐creation in the idea generation process, organizations aimed to involve external parties, mostly in the form of topic experts and lead users. Enkel et al. (2005) mentioned however that considering the involvements of customers, organizations should “involve customers as early as necessary, but as late as possible”, pointing at the potential risks of customer involvement. Before involving any other external parties, organizations often did thorough market research, not only by using traditional market research methods, but also by using new methods such as context mapping in order to set a certain scope for co-creation projects. One important thing that was found during the stage of idea generation, was the scope that projects were initiated with. Some organizations aimed at using idea generation as a greenfield, providing none to few directions to the external involved parties; others made sure that initiated projects had a clear scope for the participants, pointing them in a certain direction. Hence, there is a trade-‐off to be made between ensuring creativity and the direct usability of generated ideas. No direct clues were found in the involved literature that explicitly discussed the decision for using an open or narrow scope in this phase. Therefore, one of the contributions of this research in the phase of idea generation is that it is not only important when external parties are involved, but also to consider the degree of freedom they are left with during their involvement. Selection of ideas: making inbound and outbound innovation decisions together with externals Deriving from the open innovation paradigm, organizations are encouraged to engage themselves in a continuous process of sourcing for both inbound and outbound opportunities (Chesbrough, 2003; Grönlund, 2010); this also includes the selection of generated ideas. However, almost none of the involved organizations were found to make a deliberate consideration whether ideas should be developed internally or externally. It can here be said that the open innovation literature here is ahead of what is actually done in practice. In addition, organizations more or less internally evaluated and selected the input retrieved from the co-created idea generation phase, without the involvement of externals. Organizations here often chose ideas that had the highest potential to become a success on the market once introduced, as they are aware how well an idea matches the organizations capabilities, ignoring ideas that have great potential but are more complex to realize. Organizations might consider involving external parties in this selection process, but will then also face the challenge of providing these parties access to information in order to improve their quality of decision-making (Prahalad & Ramaswamy, 2004b). 68
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