Title: Turning ideas into innovations - introducing demand-driven collaborative ideation

Authors: Jennie Björk; Magnus P. Karlsson; Mats Magnusson

Addresses: IPD, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden ' New Business Development and Innovation, Group Function Strategy, Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, SE-164 83 Stockholm, Sweden; IPD, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden ' IPD, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: Web-enabled tools for ideation are becoming increasingly diffused in companies, but their true impact on innovation performance has been questioned. A factor that can explain some of the so far missing performance of these firm-internal systems for ideation is a lack of attention to the demand-side of ideation. Frequently, the focus of ideation is put more or less unilaterally on the supply-side, with the aim to generate as many or as good ideas as possible, instead of focusing on innovation needs. The aim of this article is to describe and analyse demand-driven collaborative ideation, with a particular emphasis on its management aspects. In order to empirically investigate how to manage this new approach to ideation, a case study of Ericsson, a Swedish multi-national corporation, has been performed. The results highlight that incentives, visibility and resources are three main components of demand-driven collaborative ideation and outline key challenges with this new approach to ideation.

Keywords: idea management; demand-driven ideation; innovation; collaboration; social media; case study; Ericsson; Sweden; multinational corporations; MNCs; incentives; visibility; resources.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIRD.2014.064152

International Journal of Innovation and Regional Development, 2014 Vol.5 No.4/5, pp.429 - 442

Received: 01 Mar 2013
Accepted: 20 Feb 2014

Published online: 30 Aug 2014 *

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