May Paper Release on ‘Bridging the Co-creation Gap Between Co-creators, Companies and Living Lab’ by Katharina Greve, Veronica Martinez and Andy Neely
Living labs offer a new open innovation platform for companies to engage in co-creation. This study offers first insights into the operational activities, design structures and data collection approaches which are implemented to facilitate the co-creation process in living labs. Particularly, living labs and companies gain deeper understandings on the specific factors that are relevant to consider when engaging in co-creation. The study integrates findings from a systematic literature with primary data collected with managers and researchers of a living lab called JOSEPHS, co-creators and companies that have utilized the living lab. Five critical factors enabling co-creation were identified: Customer Engagement, Relationship Management, Operating Principle, Design Layout, and Data Collection Approach. Within these five factors, an integrative list of 50 co-creation elements are presented to provide further detail about how co-creation can be facilitated in living labs.