An Idea Ontology for Innovation Management

International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 1-18, 2009

42 Pages Posted: 26 Jul 2010

See all articles by Christoph Riedl

Christoph Riedl

Northeastern University - D’Amore-McKim School of Business

Norman May

SAP AG - Research CEC

Jan Finzen

Fraunhofer Gesellschaft

Stephan Stathel

FZI

Viktor Kaufman

SAP AG - Research CEC

Helmut Krcmar

Technische Universität München (TUM)

Date Written: 2009

Abstract

Exchanging and analyzing ideas across different software tools and repositories is needed to implement the concepts of open innovation and holistic innovation management. However, a precise and formal definition for the concept of an idea is hard to obtain. In this paper, we introduce an ontology to represent ideas. This ontology provides a common language to foster interoperability between tools and to support the idea life cycle. Through the use of an ontology additional benefits like semantic reasoning and automatic analysis become available. Our proposed ontology captures both a core idea concept that covers the ‘heart of the idea’ and further concepts to support collaborative idea development, including rating, discussing, tagging, and grouping ideas. This modular approach allows the idea ontology to be complemented by additional concepts like customized evaluation methods. We present a case study that demonstrates how the ontology can be used to achieve interoperability between innovation tools and to answer questions relevant for innovation managers that demonstrate the advantages of semantic reasoning.

Keywords: Innovation Management, Ontology, Semantic Web, Open Innovation, Integration, Creativity

JEL Classification: D80

Suggested Citation

Riedl, Christoph and May, Norman and Finzen, Jan and Stathel, Stephan and Kaufman, Viktor and Krcmar, Helmut, An Idea Ontology for Innovation Management (2009). International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 1-18, 2009, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1648841

Christoph Riedl (Contact Author)

Northeastern University - D’Amore-McKim School of Business ( email )

360 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.christophriedl.net

Norman May

SAP AG - Research CEC ( email )

Vincenz-Prießnitz-Str. 1
Karlsruhe, 76131
Germany

Jan Finzen

Fraunhofer Gesellschaft ( email )

Leonrodstrasse 54
D-80636 Munchen
Germany

Stephan Stathel

FZI ( email )

Haid-und-Neu-Str. 10-14
Karlsruhe, 76131
Germany

Viktor Kaufman

SAP AG - Research CEC ( email )

Vincenz-Prießnitz-Str. 1
Karlsruhe, 76131
Germany

Helmut Krcmar

Technische Universität München (TUM) ( email )

Arcisstrasse 21
Munich, DE 80333
Germany

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