Incentives for User Participation in Open Innovation Networks

Innovation networks are founded on peer expertise
People who participate in innovation networks usually form a dedicated community of members existing outside conventional organizations but sharing a common interest or area of expertise. Membership and roles within the community are based on contribution and merit, not on external hierarchical status. The community develops its own internal hierarchy based on skills and contributions.

Main incentives are peer recognition and the value of [product] improvements
People initially join innovation networks because they are fascinated by the challenge and care deeply about the goals of their community. Their primary currency of reward is peer recognition. (Gloor, 2005) Other primary values for participants are to 1) build wider networks and connect to people with complementary business-critical competence, 2) build personal relationships with leaders in the field, which will improve their own productivity, 3) learn new skills and often find themselves promoted.

Open source software communities for example are composed of individuals who collaborate toward a common goal but do not share a common employer and are not governed by an employment hierarchy. According to the inventor of the open source software Apache Cocoon, the strongest driver for open source developers is to boost their ego by gaining a reputation as a supreme programmer. Even though the voluntary work in open source projects does not pay off immediately, it is considered a long-term career investment. In a large web-based study of Linux developers’ motivation, three main categories were found; 1) collective motives to help the community reach its goals, 2) peer recognition motives, to work with good people and to have them recognize your capabilities, 3) direct reward motives, such as learning, having fun or making money.

In a recent study performed by a research team at the Airport Living Lab the participating user innovators where questioned for the motivational drivers for participation. In this specific study all participants were employees at the airport but with different work roles. The single most popular incentive was “improving my own work situation”. Hence, when voluntary activity was an option to make their own situation better, they were well willing to work (to a certain limit) extra without personal financial gain to achieve a better situation for themselves, since this would improve their overall work experience. Also highly regarded, but still way behind the leading alternative, was “intellectually stimulating” and “collaborating collectively” while the incentive “financial compensation” was rated surprisingly low.

Innovation network participation may lead to long-term commitments due to lock-in effects
People who have joined a network and started collaborating with peers will be less likely to leave the community. There are primarily four reasons for this:

- Recognition. When interacting with peers there are increased likeliness of receiving positive feedback for distinguished traits of the participant. For many, it is important to interact in a community where your special knowledge is appreciated. Leaving the community would mean ending the recognition stimulus.
- Belonging. When relationships have been built within the network, both emotionally and professionally, they may all be lost if membership is discontinued. For very deep engagements, participants may even give up other external relationships that compete for participants’ available time.
- Investment. Once certain investments have been made to the community - may they be man-hours, monetary or skill - the investment made will not turn into profit if the network is abandoned.
- Decisiveness. When members have started working towards a mutual goal, they may get very absorbed by reaching targets so that backing out is not an option. One underlying reason may be simple stubbornness; another may be the engagement of actually fulfilling the goals, or solving the targeted problems, of the group - not for the sake of securing the profits but for the intrinsic purpose of finishing what has been started.

By joining innovation networks, participants find that they are able to get better faster by working with others in the networks rather than working on their own. Successful innovation networks must therefore focus on building long-term relationships with participants, creating opportunities for repeated interactions that demonstrate the value of cooperation.

Recommended reading
Ghazarian, N. (2009). User studies Within a Living Lab Context - Case Studies From Airport Living Lab. Master thesis in Computer Science, Uppsala University.

Gloor, P. A. (2005). Swarm Creativity - Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks. Oxford University Press.

Hagel III, J. & Seely Brown, J. (2006). Creation Nets: Harnessing the Potential of Open Innovation.

West J. & O’Mahoney, S. (2008) The Role of Participation Architecture in Growing Sponsored Open Source Communities.

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