Relationship Between Knowledge Creation and Open Innovation Applied Through Public Open Innovation Platforms

Abstract

Public online open innovation (OI) platforms, widely used across countries, allow communities to participate in OI processes by sharing innovative ideas about specific problems. Knowledge creation and OI are related. To implement an innovative solution, new knowledge must be created. Previous studies have discussed knowledge creation and OI in the context of organisational teams in business, but knowledge creation by communities in the context of public OI platforms has received little attention. The socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation (SECI) model is a well-known model that embodies the knowledge-creation process. The OI process involves determining community needs, identifying themes, identifying a community problem, posting that problem on a platform, sharing innovative ideas for solutions, selecting the best solutions and implementing and diffusing the solution to the community. This study applied a multi-case approach to investigate how knowledge was created by communities through an OI process based on the SECI model. Data were collected by conducting in-depth interviews with leaders of two different OI platforms in two countries. Deductive analysis was utilised to clarify the OI process used by each platform and the relationship between the processes and the SECI model. The findings revealed that the OI process applied by public OI platforms follows the SECI structure. This means that innovative solutions created by communities represent tacit knowledge, which is turned into explicit knowledge and then becomes tacit knowledge again. The developed conceptual framework can facilitate the application of OI through the knowledge creation model and enhance understanding of community knowledge creation