Communities of innovation

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to increase our understanding of the nature and role of communities within organizations with regard to innovation management, the drivers of community innovation and macro-processes of community innovation management. Design/methodology/approach The authors first use an inductive qualitative technique to analyze data gathered from a UK university to build up the concept of communities of innovation and then refine the concept of communities of innovation by contrasting it to the more established literature on communities of practice. Finally, with the aid of existing literature on collaborative innovation and the innovation processes, the authors induce from the data the drivers of community innovation and the three macro-processes of community innovation management. Findings The research findings suggest communities of innovation play a central and pivotal role in contributing to the generation of innovations within organizations. Drivers of innovation included corporate culture, money and time, intellectual property management, motivation, knowledge facilitators, activists and maintenance and opportunities to interact. The three macro-processes of community innovation management are identified as divergence management, gateway management and convergence management. Research limitations/implications As this is an exploratory research into communities of innovation, all the 11 communities of innovation analyzed belong to ABC University. It is necessary to expand on this research within the education industry, as well as into other industries to further test the reliability of the findings in this paper. Practical implications Business executives who have a better understanding of communities of innovation, the drivers of community innovation and the macro-processes of community innovation management will be better able to promote innovation within their organizations. Social implications Governments that have a better understanding of communities of innovation, the drivers of innovation and the macro-processes of community innovation management will be better able to promote innovation within their countries. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first research studies attempting to understand communities of innovation and the macro-processes of community innovation management.