Details
Year: 2019
Published in: EMES Selected Conference Papers
Cited as: Tuckerman, L., Thomson, J., and Whittam, G., (2019). Open Social Innovation: Knowledge commons and the openness spectrum in Scottish social enterprise. EMES Selected Conference Papers.
Subject
Open Social Innovation: Knowledge commons and the openness spectrum in Scottish social enterprise
Abstract
Open innovation is a term coined by Chesbrough (2003) to refer to porous organisational boundaries however critics have proposed their own models. Two academics have identified a disparity in how ‘open’ is being used in open innovation literature. Von Hippel (2010) notes that open can be used to refer to information commons (using open science and open source as examples) which is “open to all” or it can refer to organization permeability with a focus on “licensing protected intellectual property” as associated with Chesbrough’s (2003) model (von Hippel, 2010, p.555). Von Hippel (2010) and Wikhamn (2013) are connecting a form of ‘openness’ with an information or knowledge commons. The knowledge commons narrative suggests a collective approach to decision making (Cumbers, 2012), with a focus on allowing access to the knowledge through rules. These rules do not necessarily focus on monetary benefit (Ostrom & Hess, 2007) but can be governed by relationships of “mutualism and respect, social need and use value rather than exploitation, profit and exchange value” (Cumbers, 2012, p.127). This suggests two possible approaches towards open innovation within social enterprise: a commons approach to managing innovation knowledge or a ‘controlled’ approach. These two approaches could be tied to the dual motivations embedded in social enterprise: the need to generate income, and the requirement to have social impact (Doherty et al., 2014). A ‘controlled’ approach could be used to generate income where as a commons approach could increase social impact through free sharing of information. These concepts are explored through two qualitative case studies with Scottish social enterprises. The researcher undertook participant observation for a period of a year with both organisations. Observations were supplemented with interviews and a document review. Initial findings from the two longitudinal case studies suggest diversity in the approaches used by the social enterprises studied; both within organisations and from comparing organisations. One organisation, fronted by a central social entrepreneur, uses a ‘blended’ approach to managing open innovation; using a commons approach to the more social aspects of the business but maintaining protection (through licensing) of other developments. The other organisation, which employs a more collective decision making approach, takes a more ‘commons’ approach to their social innovation knowledge. This paper contributes to the fields of knowledge commons, open innovation and social innovation by exploring the ways in which they are connected and proposing a framework for further study. The findings could have implications for policy and practice in that knowledge, built by communities could be seen as a public right, and how access is controlled is then of public interest.
