Innovation communities: the role of networks of promotors in Open Innovation

摘要

Research on Open Innovation has increasingly emphasised the role of communities in creating,shaping and disseminating innovations. However, the comparability of many studies has beenhampered by the lack of a precise definition of the community construct, and the research onOpen Innovation has to date not been well connected to insights from research on the role oftransformational leaders and the networking of champions and promotors across organisa-tional boundaries. For this reason, this paper introduces a new construct of 'innovationcommunities' based on promotor theory, which it defines as 'networks of promotors'. Itproposes a comprehensive concept of the quality of interaction in innovation communities, andpresents findings of three case studies, which explore the role of promotors and networks ofpromotors in Open Innovation. The case studies reveal that such transformational leaders aspromotors, and especially their close and informal co-operation across functional andorganisational boundaries, play a key role in Open Innovation.