Communities that support innovation have been referred to as communities of innovation (CoI),Grimaldi, M., and F. Rogo. 2009. Mindsh@re in Fimmecanica: An organizational model based on communities of innovation. Proceedings of the European Conference on Intellectural Capital 236-245.Schloen, T. 2005. Expertennetzwerke als Innovationsschmiede: das Konzept der Communities of Innovation. In Sylke Ernst, Jasmin Warwas, and Edit Kirsch-Auwärter, editors, wissenstransform, 40–53. LIT Verlag. communities for innovation, innovation communities, open innovation communities, and communities of creation.
Definitions
Lim and Ong (2019) defined a community of innovation (CoI) as a group of people with a sense of camaraderie, belonging and a collective identity who are jointly facilitating innovation.
CoIs are groups made up of motivated individuals working together towards a common goal because they are convinced of their common cause.
Coakes and Smith (2007) defined communities of innovation (CoIs) as a form of communities of practice dedicated to the support of innovation.
Sawhney and Prandelli (2000) proposed the model of communities of creation as a new governance mechanism for managing knowledge found in different companies for the purpose of innovation. In CoIs, intellectual property rights are considered to be owned by the entire community, although the community is governed by a central firm which acts as the sponsor and defines the ground rules for participation. This model lies between the closed hierarchical model and the open market-based model.
Role of communities in organizations Quoting Mintzberg (2009), Lim and Ong (2019) points out that managers need to re-discover the essence of communities in the organizations in order to appropriately manage people within the organizations, who are not simply an organizational resource to be exploited, but who are the very organization itself. In other words, employees who feel they are valued and fairly treated by their organizations will usually work generously and in times of need, sacrificially for the success of the organization of which they feel they are a part of. However, employees who perceive themselves as being exploited, or possibly next on the retrenchment list, will more often than not put in only minimal work for the organization.Michael Lim, Bee Yong Ong, (2019) “Communities of innovation”, International Journal of Innovation Science, Vol. 11, pp. 402-418; https://doi.org/10.1108/IJIS-09-2017-0086Mintzberg, H. (2009), “Rebuilding companies as communities”, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 87, pp. 140-143.
Relationship between communities and innovation Stacey (1969) observed that the term ‘community’ has been used by some to connote social relations in a defined geographical area, and by others to stress the feeling of belonging to a group. Stacey, M. (1969), The myth of community studies, British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 20, pp. 134-147./
Innovation is the development and implementation of a new idea (Van de Ven, 1986). Van de Ven, A. H. (1986), “Central problems in the management of innovation”, Management Science, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 590-607./
Collaboration contributes to innovation (Pouwels and Koster, 2017). Pouwels, I. and Koster, F. (2017), “Inter-organizational cooperation and organizational innovativeness. A comparative study”, International Journal of Innovation Science, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 184-204./
Macro-processes of communities of innovation Lim and Ong (2019) observed three macro-processes, the first macro-process pertaining to having a relax and conducive environment for interaction and innovation, a second macro-process centering on the need for recognition and organizational resources to sustain the innovation process and a third macro-process of narrowing down the choices and implementation of the innovation. Building on the literature on innovation, they termed the first and third macro-processes the divergence (knowledge sharing, search activities, exploratory, and idea generation) and convergence (elimination of alternatives and narrowing down towards a choice, implementation, exploitation, and commercialization of ideas) macro-processes of community innovation. They termed the second macro-process the gateway macro-process (evaluation of new knowledge creation, selection, prioritization, control, idea screening and advocacy) as they observed that it consists of the critical processes which the organization uses to choose ideas to endorse for further development. It is the gateway through which informal communities of innovation may enter to become formal communities of innovation within the organization.
The macro-process of divergence management begins with individuals within the community of innovation building trust, sharing and discussing ideas, agreeing to develop ideas together and to seek recognition or funding from their organization. The macro-process of gateway management then evaluates the preliminary results for recognition or funding with the outcome as either funding approved or not approved for the development of the new products or services. Finally, if the funding is approved, the group dynamics of the community of innovation then becomes formalized within the organization, bringing about the development and implementation of new products or services within the macro-process of convergence management.
+ The macro-processes of community innovation management Divergence management Gateway management Convergence management 1. Building trust 5. Having the preliminary results evaluated for recognition or funding 8. Development of new products or services 2. Sharing ideas 6b. Funding approved for the development of the new products or services 9. Implementation of new products or services 3. Discussing ideas 7. Group dynamics become formalized within the organization 4. Agreeing to develop ideas together and to seek recognition or funding from organization 6a. Funding not approved
Communities of innovation compared to communities of practice Lim and Ong (2019) observed that in contrast to communities of practice, communities of innovation may emerge by themselves or be cultivated; they usually exist for a narrower purpose of producing a new service or product over a shorter life span; they are made up of participants from either one or more functions; they require a higher level of trust between participants to be effective; there is a higher cost to their participants; and the potential benefit to the organization may be greater when they are successfully implemented.
They also noted that a community of innovation (COI) may be specialized in one function like a community of practice (COP). An example is an innovation project which involves only staff from the engineering department. It is also possible for communities of innovation to be cross-functional (e.g. involving 2-3 functions). An example is an innovation project which involves staff from two functions, the business department and the environmental science department. In their research, they observed that cross-functional communities of innovation were able to consider problems from more perspectives and come up with more varied solutions. However, cross-functional communities of innovation usually require more time for discussions due to the difference in the members’ level of knowledge concerning different topics and their associated jargons.
+ The differences between communities of practice (CoP) and communities of innovation (CoI) CoP CoI Epistemology Learning Innovating Nature Emergent (natural) Maybe emergent (natural) or cultivated (artificial) Life span Longer Shorter Purpose Broader Narrower Scope Single function Maybe single function or cross-functional Participants Volunteers Maybe volunteers or conscriptsNumber of participants Few to many Few Level of trust between participants Low to moderate High Cost to participants Low to moderate High Benefit to organization Low to moderate High Motivation to join Personal interest Personal or organizational
According to Etienne Wenger, a community of practice (CoP) is a group composed of people who are interested in the same topic and often interact with each other in order to increase their knowledge in this topic. CoPs are very similar to CoIs; however, the two differ in a number of critical ways. They can be easily confused between.
A CoP is able to connect the attitudes and values of dissimilar organizations. For example, a researcher may have a similar skill-set as someone working at a corporation; however, they may have very different tacit knowledge and motivation. The formation of a CoP can bring these separate groups with different motivations to form a beneficial partnership.
CoPs and CoIs share many traits and are closely related so much so that a CoI can be deemed to be a type of CoP. CoIs are, however, different in certain critical ways not routinely addressed by CoPs, ways that are vital in the process of innovation. CoIs are focused on innovation, and while skills and processes can be transplanted across organizations, innovation processes and methods cannot, without significant customization and adaptation.
Another element that separates a CoI is "inspiration to action", which refers to the relationships formed between kindred spirits relationships providing support and inspiration for taking on the uphill battle of creating significant change and embarking on new possibilities. In contrast, this process of innovation and bringing about significant change is not well integrated with corporate strategy.
Drivers of collaborative innovation Drivers of organizational innovativeness include team processes and external knowledge (Rose et al., 2016) and networking (Lewis et al., 2018).
Communities of innovation and organizational ambidexterity Successful COIs increase innovations within an organization. They, therefore, have the potential to contribute to organizational ambidexterity, which refers to the organization's dual capabilities of managing the current business and being flexible and adaptable to meet future changes and demands.
Examples Examples of communities of innovation in history include the communities behind steam engines, iron and steel production, and textile machinery. The Pig Iron industry of Cleveland in the UK during 1850–1870 is a prime example of it.
In recent decades, the software industry has exhibited the most significant presence of CoIs. 96% of software products developed in 2016 used open source software. Particularly, in software that runs the computing infrastructure of the internet, open source is ubiquitous. Prime examples of open source software created through communities of innovation include OpenOffice, Python, Blender, GIMP, GNOME, Apache, PostgreSQL and PHP, besides Linux.
The CoI that developed Linux