Living Labs: From Niche to Mainstream Innovation Management

Abstract

Living Labs have received increasing attention over the last decade. However, despite their growing popularity and ability to positively impact organisations’ innovation performance, mainstream innovation management literature has overlooked the diverse and promising Living Labs research landscape. In an effort to move the field forward, this study analyses extant Living Labs literature in the domain of innovation management. The study identifies conceptual bases informing Living Labs research, maps the collaboration between scholars in the field, examines prevailing themes influencing the debate and reveals the influence of Living Labs research on other domains. Bibliometric methods of co-authorship, keyword co-occurrence analysis as well as bibliographic coupling are employed on two databases. Database A includes 97 focal journal articles and Database B includes all cited sources of Database A, totalling 500 documents. This study reveals the rapid growth of the scholarly literature on Living Labs in the innovation management domain, driven by a core group of authors. However, other contributions from highly visible scholars have the potential to connect Living Lab research to mainstream innovation management studies. The study also identifies the influence of Living Labs research in different application fields and potential for its further evolution.

A Methodology for the Digitalization of the Residential Building Renovation Process through OpenBIM-Based Workflows

“…In this project, the end user's involvement in the discussion is key to ensuring that the developments are user-centered and focused on real needs and requirements. For that purpose, a research method called Living Labs [38][39][40], based on an open innovation approach for sensing, prototyping, validating, and refining complex solutions in multiple evolving real-life contexts [41], has been implemented as part of the strategy adopted by the BIM4Ren project. Within this Living Lab framework, activities intended to integrate the users' insight and expectations in decision making have been conducted.…”

Living Labs Past Achievements, Current Developments, and Future Trajectories

“…For example, [30,31] document LLs in the context of agriculture and health care, and such articles represent a tradition of firstgeneration LLs, while [27][28][29], focus on co-creation, its process and phases in LLs in secondgeneration LLs. Greve et al [23], Bronson et al [24], Engez et al [25], and Cuomo et al [26] in turn offer various conceptualizations for LLs, which are part of discussion of thirdgeneration LLs. The co-guest editors emphasize that LL generations should not primarily be seen as an advancement indicator, but rather descriptions of larger research traditions that the researchers participate in and belong to.…”

“…The paper by Greve et al [23] analyzes research of a LL landscape and creates conceptual bases mapping collaboration among scholars, themes, and the evolution of coauthorship network, and reveals extensive datasets of scholarly research by bibliometric research in innovation management. The results build bridges to other research domains by revealing their influence on scholarly research of LLs.…”

“…The special issue suggests various contributions and future avenues for LL research. For example, Greve et al [23] suggest deepening analysis of the LL research and particularly factors that are associated with collaboration in LLs. Several studies cf.…”

Expect the Unexpected: Investigating co-creation projects in a Living Lab

“…The Role of Living Labs LLs find application in many sectors. Their fields of application, as well as attention from policymakers and academics, have grown, particularly during the last decade (Paskaleva et al, 2015;Schuurman et al, 2015;Hossain et al, 2019;Greve et al, 2020Greve et al, , 2021Paskaleva & Cooper, 2021). LLs are often described as bridging the gap between "open innovation" (Chesbrough, 2003) and "user innovation" (von Hippel, 2005).…”