From Open Innovation to Crowd Sourcing: A New Configuration of Collaborative Work?

Abstract

In the era of the digital economy (ICT, Internet Objects, Cloud, Big and Open Data, etc.), we observe important transformations linked to this digital revolution [1], including development of collaborative and participative platforms, the rise of inter-company, inter-organization and inter-network collaborations, as well as the development of sharing and open innovation dynamics (crowd sourcing, crowd funding, maker space, Fab Lab, Innovation Laboratory Open, etc.). We wanted to better understand how innovation was developed in this context and to this end, we conducted a thorough study of an open-value network aimed at developing innovative products. The network studied, Sensorica, is organized around three fundamental pillars, each with a specific role: an association, the NPO, for governance, a network of companies for commercialization and an open, international community for collaborative work and the development of innovation. It is thanks to a platform on the internet that individual workers, motivated by the values of the peer to peer (P2P) or participative economy are involved in creating together innovations on distributed projects. In the context of participatory economics, this network illustrates new forms of cooperation, ways of managing collaborations based on the model of P2P, based on a partnership of shared values system.