open research and development in higher education

Global Conference on Business and Finance Proceedings i Volume 11 i Number 1

2016

OPEN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT IN HIGHER EDUCATION Juha Kettunen, Turku University of Applied Sciences ABSTRACT This study presents the taxonomy of innovation types based on the actor and the learning types. The activities of inventors have today been extended to collaborative and networked innovation. This study extends them to crowd innovation, which is a new term based on crowdsourcing. The study illustrates open innovation alliances and communities in higher education. The study also presents empirical evidence on the European strategic innovation alliance and a Finnish innovation community that has an electronic platform that presents and evaluates ideas and then forward them for practice JEL: 034 KEYWORDS: Innovation Alliances, Innovation Communities, Crowdsourcing, Research and Development, Learning, Higher Education INTRODUCTION The importance of inventors has been reduced because today’s complex structures of e business organizations and society have taught people to innovate. Innovation is too important to be left only in the hands of inventors. Higher education institutions have started to follow the lead of business companies, where many new formats such as innovation alliances and communities have become popular. Single scholars in research universities generate new ideas and publish their results in journals. Typically doctoral dissertations and many articles are written alone. It is important for these research scholars that they are the first presenter of their new knowledge. The traditional process takes time, however, and is inefficient, because only few people outside the institution will read the articles and utilize the research results. The closed process of research and development in higher education institutions is simply now too slow to produce competitive advantage for business companies. The traditional approach of innovation, however, can be improved by using open innovation alliances and communities in higher education. LITERATURE REVIEW Open Innovations Collaborative value creation where the ideas and innovative efforts flow inside-out and outside-in is called “open innovation” (Chesbrough, 2003). This open innovation process generally includes inbound and outbound knowledge flows and combined processes (Gianiodis et al., 2010, and Lichtenthaler, 2011). This open networked co-innovation is a form of adding external actor involvement to innovation, where actors from a diverse backgrounds collectively solve complex problems using a virtual network (von Raesfeld et al., 2012, and Song et al., 2013). The open innovation process is a value chain, using an innovation ecosystem where various partners combine their contributions into value creating solutions. Collaboration is not restricted just to higher education institutions; it also reaches research institutes, business companies, and the public sector. The project connects solution seekers with collaborating solution providers. Nobody knows everything about a collaborative research and development project, but everyone can contribute to the project in different ways.

GCBF i Vol. 11 i No. 1 i 2016 i ISSN 1941-9589 ONLINE & ISSN 2168-0612 USB Flash Drive

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Open Innovation Alliances Open innovation alliances are coalitions constructed between two or more parties to promote innovations. Open innovation alliances have a number of benefits, including 1) pooling complementary skills, 2) accessing external knowledge, 3) accelerating product development (Pittaway et al., 2004), and 4) offering early and closer customer interaction in product development (Corso et al., 2001). There is extensive literature available on the positive contribution networks can make to innovation and returns (Burt, 2005, Faems et al., 2005, Perks and Jeffery, 2006, and Reuer and Koza, 2000). Innovation pedagogy was developed for higher education institutions and their networks, so that lecturebased education could be extended to collaborative and networked learning (Kettunen, 2011, Kantola and Kettunen, 2012, and Kettunen et al., 2013). Typically multidisciplinary research and development projects respond to the development needs of the environment. These projects are integrated into education to create more and better capabilities for students and staff to create collaborative and networked innovations for companies and the public sector. Innovation pedagogy is extended in this study so as to create crowd innovations based on the concept of crowdsourcing with the larger public. Open Innovation Communities Innovation communities are nodes that consist of firms that are interconnected by information transfer links. These links may involve face-to-face, electronic, or other types of communication (von Hippel, 2005). Innovation communities have users as customers and/or contributors. Typically, users join together on a web-based platform and this joining increases the speed and effectiveness with which users and other contributors can present, evaluate, and diffuse their innovations. Crowdsourcing attracts interested and motivated people to produce solutions that are superior to the ideas offered by individual genius. Under the right circumstances, a crowd is able to present a solution that is better than the ideas of a single scientific researcher. The wisdom of crowds is not derived from averaging their solutions, but rather a user of crowdsourcing must find and identify those situations where mediocrity is excellence and the offered solutions can be aggregated in the same way that markets and intelligent voting systems aggregate them. The conditions needed for collective wisdom are 1) diversity of opinion, 2) independence, 3) decentralization, and 4) aggregation of the crowd (Surowiecki, 2004). Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving model that is not necessarily an open-source practice in all business companies. Higher education institutions are more open to the concept because they primarily publish the results of research and development of their members. Types of Innovations Innovation types can be classified according to actor and learning type. Individual learning in lecture halls, collaborative learning in teams within an institution, and networked learning outside the institute in domestic and international networks are the learning types for innovation pedagogy. They can all be used jointly to interconnect in a suitable situation. Crowd innovation is a new term, and it is based on the concept of crowdsourcing wherein innovations are obtained from an open innovation community. Such innovation has evolved from individual inventors to produce collaborative and networked innovations and finally crowd innovations. The crowd wisdom can be implemented in the web, which is the necessary technology for decentralized individuals to communicate on a single platform. DATA AND METHODOLOGY The Consortium on Applied Research and Professional Education (CARPE) is an example of innovation alliances (Kettunen, 2015). It includes the following institutions: 1) HU University of Applied Sciences GCBF i Vol. 11 i No. 1 i 2016 i ISSN 1941-9589 ONLINE & ISSN 2168-0612 USB Flash Drive

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Utrecht (Hogeschool Utrecht), 2) Turku University of Applied Sciences (Turun ammattikorkeakoulu), 3) Polytechnic University of Valencia (Universitat Politècnica de València), 4) Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg), and Manchester Metropolitan University. The Innopankki platform is an example of an innovation community in South Savo in Finland. This platform is an interesting example, as ideas are collected from a wide crowd, including users and customers, to meet their needs and views of development. Educational institutions created this platform to search and evaluate ideas to create innovations. The research questions and theoretical concepts here in are connected with the empirical data by using qualitative research methodology as outlined by Bryman and Bell (2011) and Punch (2005). The study uses an interpretative approach to a case study (Yin, 2003). The study also enlightens the reader on the details of institutional management that are commonly omitted in quantitative studies (Mason, 2002). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The innovation alliance of higher education institutions is an open network. Other institutions and partners can join the research and development projects whenever deemed necessary. The strategic alliance is also open to student and staff exchanges from other institutions outside the strategic alliance. CARPE is an innovation alliance that provides opportunities for other active institutions to become associate members and finally become full members. The innovation process of the web-based innovation community involves three phases: 1) presenting an idea, 2) evaluating and improving the idea, and 3) implementing it. The idea is usually based on an existing problem that needs a solution. The idea is improved in the second stage by other users. It is also important to reject the idea if it cannot produce any benefits. The selected idea is then forwarded to the partners in the community for development and implementation in the final stage. CONCLUDING COMMENTS The traditional inventions of investors and the research of a single scholar have today extended to collaborative and networked innovation. This study presents a new innovation type called “crowd innovation” which is based on crowdsourcing. It is not reasonable to limit innovations to a specific type, but all types of innovations can be used in suitable situations. The study recommends that higher education institutions should create strategic innovation alliances to promote more research and development, support student and staff exchanges, and provide opportunities for institutions and other partners to collaborate. This study also recommends that higher education institutions use crowdsourcing to encourage the greater public to present and evaluate new ideas for further development and innovation use. REFERENCES Bryman, A. and E. Bell (2011) Business Research Methods. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Burt, S.S. (2005) Brokerage and Closure: An Introduction to Social Capital. New York, NY, Oxford University Press. Chesbrough, H. (2003). Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, Boston, MA, Harvard Business School Press. Corso, M., A. Martini, E. Paolucci and L. Pellegrini (2001) “Knowledge Management in Product Innovation: An Interpretative Review,” International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 3(2, June), p. 341-352. Faems, D., B. van Looy and K. Debackere (2005) “Interorganizational Collaboration and Innovation: Toward a Portfolio Approach,” Journal of Product Innovation Management, vol. 22(3, May), p. 238-250.


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Gianiodis, P.T., S.C. Ellis and E. Secchi (2010) “Advancing a Typology of Open Innovation,” International Journal of Innovation Management, vol. 14(4, August), p. 531-572. von Hippel, E. (2005) Democratizing Innovation. Cambridge, MA, The MIT Press. Kantola, M. and J. Kettunen (2012) “Integration of Education with Research and Development and the Export of Higher Education,” On the Horizon, vol. 20(1), p. 7-16. Kettunen, J. (2011) “Innovation Pedagogy for Universities of Applied Sciences,” Creative Education, 2(1, March), p. 56-62. Kettunen, J. (2015) Strategic Networks of Higher Education Institutions: Evidence from Europe, Business Education & Accreditation, vol. 7(1), p. 87-95. Retrieved September 24, 2015 from: http://www.theibfr.com/ARCHIVE/BEA-V7N1-2015.pdf Kettunen, J., L. Kairisto-Mertanen and T. Penttilä (2013) Innovation Pedagogy and Desired Learning Outcomes in Higher Education, On the Horizon, vol. 21(4), p. 333-342. Lichtenthaler, U. (2011) “Open Innovation: Past Research, Current Debates, and Future Directions,” Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 25(1, February), p. 75-93. Mason, J. (2002) Qualitative Researching. London, Sage Publications. Perks, H. and R. Jeffery (2006) “Global Network Configuration for Innovation: A Study of International Fibre Innovation,” R&D Management, vol. 36(1), p. 67-83. Pittaway, L., M. Robertson, K., Munir, D., Denyer and A. Neely (2004) “Networking and Innovation: A Systematic Review of the Evidence,” International Journal of Management Reviews, vol. 5/6(3-4, September), p. 137-168. Punch, K., (2005) Introduction to Social Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches, London, Sage Publications. von Raesfeld, A., P. Geurts and M. Jansen (2012) “When Is a Network a Nexus for Innovation? A Study of Public Nanotechnology R&D Projects in the Netherlands,” Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 41(5, July), p. 752-758. Reuer, J.J. and M.P. Koza (2000) “Asymmetric Information and Joint Venture Performance: Theory and Evidence for Domestic and International Joint Ventures,” Strategic Management Journal, vol. 21(1, January), p. 81-88. Song, W., X. Ming and P. Wang (2013) “Collaborative Product Innovation Network: Status Review, Framework, and Technology Solutions,” Concurrent Engineering, 21(1, March), p. 55-64. Yin, R. (2003) Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications.


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