Exploring entrepreneur-intermediary interactions regarding user orientation : evidence from Living-labs-as-a-service projects

摘要

Innovation intermediaries are confronted with different entrepreneurial types.Academic attention on the interactions between entrepreneurs and innovationintermediaries is limited. Four entrepreneurial types are discussed throughout this paper.These are based on the source of the entrepreneurial idea (Shah & Tripsas, 2007) and the(prime) motivation for entrepreneurial activities (Block, Sandner & Spiegel, 2015): enduserentrepreneurs, professional-user entrepreneurs, classic (opportunity-driven)entrepreneurs and forced entrepreneurs. Further, this paper proposes a conceptualentrepreneur-intermediary interaction process model, facilitating knowledge transfer,with 5 stages: alignment, learning activities, interpretation, sense-making andimplementation. The process model is explored by means of a multi-dimensional casestudy of 8 projects with distinct entrepreneurial types. Evidence is sourced from thecontext of a Living-Lab-as-a-Service organization. The paper contributes to theunderstanding of entrepreneur-intermediary interactions in general, and interactionsthrough Living-Labs-as-a-Service in particular.