How Can Living Labs Enhance the Participants’ Motivation in Different Types of Innovation Activities?

Abstract

The contribution of this article consists on building on the types of innovation mechanisms in Living Lab networks (Leminen, Westerlund, & Nyström, 2012; Leminen, 2013) by relating each type to a different theoretical innovation logic (methods for creativity; social innovation; open innovation; user innovation). Each logic is related to a different type of localized space of collective innovation (Fab Labs, co-creation spaces, coworking spaces and hackerspaces) and participants’ motivation to collaborate. The literature review on the main characteristics of each logic and the corresponding motivations of participants provide some guidelines for Living Lab practitioners about how to motivate participants in the different modes of “Living Labbing”.

Keywords: motivation to collaborate; hackerspaces; coworking spaces; Fab Labs; open innovation; social innovation; user innovation