Open innovation scholars as well as practitioners are still struggling with the practical implementation of open innovation principles in different contexts. In this article, we explore the value of a living lab approach for open innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Using a case study approach, we compared 27 SME projects conducted by iMinds Living Labs from 2011 to 2015. The results suggest that a real-life intervention and a multi-method approach – both of which are methodological characteristics of living lab projects – increase the chance of generating actionable user contributions for the innovation under development. Moreover, the results also suggest that a living lab project yields maximal value when evolving from concept towards prototype. Besides these exploratory findings, this article also demonstrates that living lab projects are a perfect "playground" to test and validate assumptions from the open innovation literature.
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机译：开放式创新学者和从业者仍在努力在不同背景下实际实施开放式创新原则。在本文中，我们探讨了活实验室方法对于中小企业（SME）进行开放式创新的价值。使用案例研究方法，我们比较了2011年至2015年iMinds Living Labs开展的27个SME项目。结果表明，现实生活中的干预措施和多方法方法（这两者都是Living Lab项目的方法论特征）会增加为正在开发的创新产生可行的用户贡献的机会。此外，结果还表明，从概念向原型发展时，一个活着的实验室项目会产生最大的价值。除了这些探索性发现之外，本文还证明了活着的实验室项目是测试和验证开放式创新文献中的假设的理想“游乐场”。
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