Innovation Instruments to Co-Create Needs-Based Solutions in a Living Lab

Abstract

This multiple case study focuses on co-creation facilitated with innovation instruments in three different environments – a school, a hospital, and an airport – in which 12 SMEs and startups developed solutions based on predefined needs of customer organizations, and where stakeholders actively participated through user involvement methods facilitated by a living lab. The article provides new knowledge regarding the benefits of the co-creation, user involvement, and use of the living lab approach within different contexts. Our findings show concrete benefits of co-creation for stakeholders such as companies, customer organizations, and end users. Based on our results, we propose a new, generic model for using innovation instruments to facilitate co-creation for the development of needs-based products and services in different service domains.

Keywords

• co-creation
• innovation instrument
• innovation process
• Living lab
• SME
• startup
• user involvement