Keywords

1 Introduction

Innovation ecosystems, often being region specific, have increasingly gained ground in the literature on innovation, strategy and university–industry collaboration. They have drawn interest specifically due to the opportunity to gain competitive advantage on a firm level but also to drive sustainable growth on a regional and even national level. Scholars have developed a number of definitions and labels such as open innovation [1], innovation clusters [2,3,4,5,6], innovation networks [7], innovation ecosystems [8,9,10] and triple or even quadruple helix models [11, 12]. Generally, innovation ecosystems consist of a number of symbiotic economic and sociological interactions between actors or entities [2, 8]. A well-established combination of these entities involves private sector, academia, including universities and research organisations, as well as public sector (like governmental bodies) and citizens living in interdependent relationships and creating mutually beneficial value to the society [2]. Furthermore, innovation is said to lie in the intersection of different bodies of knowledge and diversity has a tendency to increase the likelihood of innovations to emerge [13]. Despite the extensive literature to date, research calls for a further understanding of the successful implementation of innovation ecosystems specifically through a people-centric lens [14]. Moving beyond transactional collaboration and with the thought of mutual value creation and interdependent relationships among a diverse group of actors, a more holistic perspective on ecosystems [15, 16] and opportunities to draw inspiration from co-creation needs to be taken [17].

Hence, this paper sets out to deepen our knowledge on how diversity can be embodied in ecosystem context and what are possible co-creation processes enhancing innovation ecosystem success. We approach this topic through a systematic review of extant literature from innovation, engineering and design, but also organisational management, cognition, and adjacent fields. We specifically focus on eliciting how to enhance diversity of ecosystems on multiple levels—and across these—as well as to provide practical implications on how to effectively achieve it. Continuous cross-pollination of ideas, knowledge and technology between actors is fundamental to introducing innovation and a more divergent combination of these elements increases the chance for innovation to emerge. In this paper, we will first explore how diversity can be introduced on three levels (macro, meso and micro) among the collaborators. This is followed by examining the diverse nature of interactions and its impacts, and finally, we will explore how transition towards co-creation practices and mindset/culture can facilitate coping with the inherent complexities of collaboration in diverse settings.

2 Diversity in an Ecosystem and Its Link to Successful Innovation

The benefit of diversity for innovation processes and knowledge creation has been highlighted by numerous scholars [1, 18,19,20,21]. Based on the literature review in the fields of innovation ecosystems and diversity, a framework was formed as a result categorising different types of diversity among collaborators and/or entities. The framework differentiates three different levels: sector (macro), organisational (meso), and individual (micro). Named as multi-level diversity framework (Table 13.1), it illustrates how diversity can be impact innovation ecosystems on multiple levels. The central literature underpinning the framework is explored in more detail in the following subsections.

Table 13.1 Multi-level diversity framework
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2.1 Diversity on Macro-level

Diversity at sector level can impact on ecosystems essentially in two ways. Finding the right balance between specialisation and diversification is key to robustness in economic and societal changes [22]. The dot-com boom in early 2000s (and subsequent collapse) had a major negative impact globally on the information technology sector including the one in Silicon Valley illustrating the vulnerability to market turmoil if an ecosystem is highly dominated by a single industry sector, expertise and focus on a small market section. What sped up the recovery process was the strong presence of other sectors ranging from biotechnology, medical devices, aeronautics and medical devices [23, 24]. In addition to managing risks for long-term sustainability through staying insight of alternative markets, a more diverse mix of sectors in an innovation ecosystem can significantly raise the likelihood of novel solutions to form as unconnected ideas, methods and technology can merge into innovative breakthroughs [13, 18].

2.2 Diversity on Meso-level

Diversity at an organisational level (meso) can create multiple benefits and specifically from an organisation’s perspective collaborating beyond organisational boundaries has been identified as highly beneficial. The number and diversity of direct connections a company has can boost its innovation capacity, when well set-up and managed [25]. Similarly as to the sector level diversity, risk reduction in research & development can be achieved by having a number of collaborators as activities can be distributed among them. In addition, it may give a confidence boost to the rising uncertainty of the development and application of new technologies. They also reduce associated ambiguity of innovation and facilitate information streams to accelerate [26].

Diversity can be identified and introduced in vertical (such as suppliers in the supply chain) and horizontal (e.g. direct peers within and between industries including education and R&D companies) partners of the organisations [5, 27, 28]. The benefit of horizontal and vertical partners is demonstrated in two different ways. Collaborating, horizontal partners will end up racing against and pushing one other, and as a result create an important incentive for innovation and differentiation, especially in the context of early stage cluster formation [2]. On the other hand, vertical links such as customers and suppliers incentivise market and production demand and therefore promote growth [29]. In addition, these relationships provide a unique type of knowledge that is solely accessible to the partners within the ecosystem and thus can lead to competitive advantage. The literature suggests that complementary investments aimed at acquiring a deeper understanding of the market, e.g. from competitors or customers, can increase the organisational performance significantly [30]. To avoid the risk dependencies and to hold ownership in decision-making, an organisation should liaise with a number of partners. These collaborative settings should ideally represent public and private sectors as well as research organisations to maximise innovative outcomes [31].

Finally, a factor mitigating the economic volatility is the vast number of organisations of varying sizes [32]. An appropriate example may be found in Finland where Nokia’s decline in the mobile phone market boosted the Finnish start-up ecosystem. Former Nokia employees transitioned to founders of new ventures and start-up support organisations contributing to the blooming yet previously almost non-existent entrepreneurial tech sector [33]. Before, the national economy was too reliant on a small number of traditional, established and large-scale companies. Despite the national crisis the Nokia crash caused, the local economy was able to create a more balanced mix of corporations, including a significantly higher number of diverse organisations: from small- and medium-sized companies and start-ups to large corporations [34].

2.3 Diversity on Micro-level

Within both sector and meso-level, collaboration mainly occurs among individuals (often called micro-foundations/micro-levels of innovation) and there is a variety of ways to include diversity in such collaborative situations within and across stakeholders. As discussed previously, innovation occurs at the intersection of different bodies of knowledge with the greater potential for innovation the more diverse the inputs. Research has shown that an organisation with diverse staff tends to clearly outperform those where employees have more homogenous backgrounds [35]. Heterogeneity can come from through inherent (traits people are born with) or acquired diversity (traits gained from experience). As such, team compositions should include collaborators with different qualifications and expertise [36]. Also, inherent diversity, e.g. age or gender, more accurately manifests the construct of the society or the marketplace and, therefore, the organisation is able to discover unmet needs or untapped market segments. User needs are better understood by a team, in which at least one team member has mutual traits with the end-user [37]. Furthermore, diversity as per cultural background and nationality puts a team in a better position to question assumptions and societal norms. A high percentage of people from different national and cultural backgrounds has been one of the enablers for the mentioned ecosystem success in Silicon Valley [24]. Finally, it is beneficial to combine both inherent and acquired diversity traits in an organisation or a collaborative setting to achieve innovative outcomes as it creates an environment where unexpected ideas are heard. Acquired diversity specifically plays a major role in allowing employees to express their ideas and to feel they are being valued [37, 38].

3 Collaboration Ties and Relationships

Apart from the diversity of the actual stakeholders involved in a network, the way collaboration ties are formed between them is equally important for the success of an innovation ecosystem [39]. Collaboration ties refer to the nature of interactions between stakeholders and what is effective in a particular context. Whilst diversity of participants can be instrumental for an ecosystem to prosper, collaboration ties between actors determine if the collaboration will be successful, or not. Different types of collaboration ties and their impact on the successfulness of a collaboration are explored systematically in the following, based on the extant literature and are summarised in Table 13.2.

Table 13.2 Variety of collaboration ties and their impact on development activities
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The first dimension we will look into is the formality of a collaboration tie. Specifically, we discern between formal and informal ties, which may occur in corporate alliances, project work or, at a higher level, through participation in industry-specific associations. A formal type of collaboration is suggested to facilitate reciprocal transfer of explicit knowledge between organisations or individuals, which can facilitate the execution of set tasks in a project. In innovation, novel thought, however, often emerges in a rather unpredictable manner, for which informal communication, sharing tacit knowledge and engagement in joint practices are essential. As such, open forums that foster more informal types of communication are often key in making sure an innovation network functions well [39]. In fact, beyond fostering informal exchange, it seems it is indeed the absence of formal structures, providing a relaxed and mutually trusted environment that intrinsically motivates individuals to collaborate and work towards a common objective, much more effectively and in a self-directed manner. This motivation—and its reliance on mutual trust—is typically directly linked to the network’s overall purpose. If the network has mainly performative objectives (i.e. reach a specific outcome), for instance, sufficient trust can be ensured through relevant contract agreements. For transformative goals (i.e. exploration of opportunities), which is much more uncertain, trust in the partners’ native abilities to work jointly and communicate openly is essential [40]. By and large, informal collaboration ties facilitate joint exploration and reinterpretation of knowledge and ideas and trigger tacit (potentially unrelated) knowledge to be shared ad hoc, which likely leads to new discovery. Formal structures, in turn, are vital when it comes to implementing solutions and/or executing clearly defined tasks along the innovation process. Innovation ecosystems require both types of relationships.

Relationship types can also be described as per their particular strength, which reflects the time and effort invested in building the relationship, and also is a measure for the resulting emotional link between partners. Both strong and weak ties are equally important, each for a different purpose. Similar to the formality of a collaboration discussed prior, stronger relationship ties foster ad hoc transfer of (tacit) knowledge, but might get in the way of search and exploration activities (as information shared is more likely to be already known by both partners). Weaker ties, in turn, help in the earlier, exploration phases of a project, though individual activities might have to be managed more closely [39]. Weaker ties contribute to innovation as they tend to connect otherwise disconnected social groups. As such, fewer social conformities apply, hence allowing more flexibility for experimentation and diverse knowledge to be combined and spawn new ideas [38].

The literature suggests another important factor, which pertains to the number of collaborators in a network [41]. Particularly, connections across organisational boundaries, potentially also involving (local) communities, are suggested to have a clearly positive impact on innovation. The reasons for this are rooted in the dynamics of collaboration between two as compared to more parties. The more parties there are the less likely are self-interests of an individual entity to prevail, due to a reduced bargaining power against other participants, also facilitating fast conflict resolution [41].

A final issue worth mentioning here is the level of maturity of a relationship (established versus more recent), when it comes to novel ideas being created in an innovation ecosystem. The literature suggests that creative thought is enhanced, at individual and group levels, when more time is invested in exchange with a more diverse group of people, i.e. acquaintances or even strangers, as compared to only be sticking to colleagues or long-time partners [38]. Therein, it is important to keep connecting to new people regularly, as, naturally, the innovation stimulation effect wears off as more time is spent with others. This is simply because it leads to a decrease in the amount of non-redundant information that is/can be shared between participants.

4 Shift to Co-creation Practices and Collaborative Culture

Building on the discussed insights, it is apparent that increased diversity in the collaborators involved and of the relationships they have can add substantial value to an innovation ecosystem. Yet, it stands to reason that adding diversity to an ecosystem and introducing novel actors/stakeholders brings about significant challenges in terms of collaborating seamlessly. It can reinforce the tension between required dynamics (to foster novel thought) and desirable stability (to produce outcomes reliably). Missing trust in novel entrants to a network can hinder transfer of knowledge and thus inhibit open collaboration [42]. The multi-layered character of an innovation ecosystem, diversity of involved actors and increasing demands of co-creation activities make it difficult to manage collaborations effectively and, therefore, exacerbate the challenges in knowledge exchange. An early and/or particularly novel/surprising discovery and the successful exploitation of the resulting opportunity can help the network to grow strong right at the start. Though, the effect can also be negative, depending on the trust and openness in the network, for instance, when individual stakeholders want to take ownership of a new idea [40]. This risk can be effectively mitigated explicitly emphasising the concept co-creation and of a collaborative culture, rather than allowing silos to form. There is, however, no magic formula or clear-cut recipe as per how a successful innovation ecosystem can be created and maintained [30, 42]. Each ecosystem and stakeholder network is different and needs special attention. It is imperative to truly understand the needs and goals of all actors, their context and culture, in order to select appropriate mechanisms that facilitate the building process of ecosystems along the way.

Co-creation is defined as collaborative, joint acts of creativity, i.e. creative problem exploration and solution finding carried out by two or more people [43]. In other words, it is a collaborative effort of multiple stakeholders with the intent of working towards a common, (novel) goal [44]. In trying to implement co-creation in industrial practice, it is vital to consider a multitude of principles to achieve the desired outcome. It does not happen by itself, but demands concerted planning and true integration into the activities of the innovation ecosystem. Probably the most important part is suitable time management. This is due to a more complex project set-up, involving multiple actors, to equally create more complex barriers for collaboration, which have to be addressed. Whilst it carries great potential for innovation, it also means that network participants will need a higher level of engagement and patience [40]. Any sudden shift in the network may trigger a disruption that needs to be managed, often delaying progress however brief, until the change is fully addressed and dealt with by each stakeholder.

A beneficial approach can be to gradually build a network wider and wider, with knowledge transfer limited to a small circle at the start, when levels of uncertainties are highest, to a larger group as boundaries become more clear [40]. Concurrently, effective channels of communication, knowledge transfer and also accountabilities can be established that later facilitate building trust in the network quickly by every (new) participant. Equally, the co-creation process itself needs clear structure and project management that can be put in place as the network grows, also to facilitate collaboration between the existing network and new entrants. Often, issues at an individual level reflect larger issues/challenges at higher levels. These need to be captured early and addressed integrally [45]. Also, in innovation, new ideas or knowledge may be created at any level in an organisation: by individuals, within or between departments or even at firm level. Successful organisations seem to leverage off all these levels [46]. A key enabler for this is a collaborative, open communication culture [44]. Where such a culture is missing or not yet fully developed, formal roles like knowledge brokers might be installed. These could intervene to stimulate sharing knowledge more openly [40].

5 Discussion and Implications for Future Research

The work presented in this paper sought to help building a better understanding of the particular way diversity—at multiple levels of participation—as well as the adoption of co-creation activities and mindsets can help innovation ecosystems to prosper. We find that diversity is in fact vital in furthering creative, novel ideas to be generated in an ecosystem as it allows alternative viewpoints and expertise to be explored, providing opportunities for novel combinations of knowledge to emerge, be varied and (re-) combined in new ways between all stakeholders involved. In fact, a higher level of diversity in an ecosystem, i.e. the mix of stakeholders and their expertise, the higher the chances for innovative solutions to be generated. Equally, however, such ecosystems require more careful management to mitigate different interests, aims and ways of working. Co-creation between committed, open and engaged actors in an ecosystem allows harnessing diversity in a manner that is usually not achievable with more traditional, rather transactional ways of collaborating. It takes time for such a strong connection between actors in an innovation ecosystem to develop, requiring trust, patience and a long-term engagement. Whilst there are several tools to facilitate such a strong connection to grow, ultimately, we see a change in mindset towards common goals and benefits of the ecosystems—rather than of the individual—as key prerequisite. And this is ultimately rooted in building longer-term connections that allow trust to build that involved actors have a common benefit in mind.

An ever-accelerating commercial landscape leads innovation ecosystems to become more and more complex: starting with a triple helix—such as the public sector, governments, research institutes but also the private sector—to a quadruple helix, which entails citizens or the media to contribute and communicate knowledge [11, 12, 47]. Thus, the importance of a mindset for co-creation is increased. This means one has to expand the centre of attention to include stakeholders who are not directly impacted by the development to ensure leveraging the full potential of, e.g., a community, business networks, etc. Harnessing such adjacent knowledge and expertise in the best possible manner carries a huge potential to make ecosystems more effective [16]. Yet, how this can be achieved (in different contexts)—in an effective manner—still needs further exploration in research.

Further to our last point, we also expect the number and variety of involved actors to increase as ecosystems evolve in future. This also means, inadvertently, that the roles of involved stakeholders—public and private—will shift. We already see tendencies in the public sector to enlarge their networks (e.g., universities increasingly collaborating nationally and internationally or local governments involving citizens in planning public construction/development projects), in attempt to streamline efforts and ensure that activities cohesively build towards something rather than to compete with one another [30]. Larger societal or technological changes—often inherent to innovation—need the stewardship of the public sector (through legislation or incentives) to ‘get off the ground’ and involving more actors of an ecosystem ensures a broader public support and more directed actions. Conversely, we see the private sector to gradually, but continuously, change its role beyond their organisational boundaries to directly connect with users, clients or society in general. Companies—not only in the area of design but also engineering—more and more use common citizens for co-creation workshops to ensure alignment with user wants and needs. This has progressed to a point, where the boundaries between non-profit and for-profit organisations become slightly blurred. The emergence of entirely new, more continuously engaging business models, such as product-service systems rather than traditional sales-focused models, is a good example. More continuous, collaborative, ‘fair’ partnerships with the public sector and civil society, and embracing diverse cultures are likely to accelerate the development of innovation ecosystems [42]. We believe this should also include a stronger link between research institutes, particularly universities, to benefit education of the next generation of employees. Universities can contribute enormous societal value through research, education and generally instilling an innovative spirit in students that benefit innovation ecosystems at multiple levels. This includes for universities to move away from their traditional role as educators of future employees and generators of knowledge to skills and capacity builders benefitting the whole innovation ecosystem. This could also mean rethinking the importance and offerings around lifelong learning.