Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

City lab as a platform for implementing urban innovation. The role of companies

Abstract

This article has two aims. The first one is to show city lab as a specific innovation management platform in urban areas, whereas the other is to present the reasons why companies should get involved in it. The article begins by showing how the perception of innovation evolved from a strictly technological notion to an approach associated with satisfying social needs (social and urban innovation). Next, the understanding of city lab will be presented, taking into account the well-known living lab concept. Subsequently, based on the quadruple helix concept, city lab actors will be discussed (public authorities, enterprises, city users, scientific units and intermediaries), as well as their roles, against the background of public-private-people partnerships (4P). Considering these observations, similarities and differences between living lab and city lab will be identified. By way of conclusion, the article offers a handful of reasons why companies, especially multinational ones, should get involved in city lab initiatives.

Keywords

city lab, living lab, innovation, multinational companies, social innovation, urban innovation

PDF

References

  1. Almirall, E. (2009) Understanding innovation as a collaborative, co-evolutionary process. Doctoral Thesis, Esade – Escuela superior de administracion y direccion de Emperas.
  2. Amin, A., Massey, D., Thrift, N. (2000), Cities for the Many Not the Few. Bristol: Policy Press.
  3. Ballon, P., Pierson, J., Delaere, S. (2005) Test and experimentation platforms for broadband innovation: Examining European practice. Brussels Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication (SMIT) Interdisciplinary Institute for BroadBand Technology (IBBT) Belgium.
  4. Benson, J. K. (1983) ‘A Framework for Policy Analysis’, in Rogers D., Whetten D. (eds), Interorganisational Coordination: Theory, Research & Implementation, Iowa State University Press, Iowa.
  5. BEPA (2011) Empowering People, Driving Change. Social Innovation in the European Union. Publications Office of the European Union Luxembourg.
  6. Burson-Marsteller (2011), Trust & Purpose, Brussels
  7. Cahn, E. S. (2001) No More Throwaway People: The Co-production Imperative, Essential Books, Washington DC.
  8. Carayannis, E.G., Campbell D.F.J. (2009) ‘”Mode 3” and “Quadruple Helix”: toward a 21st century fractal innovation ecosystem’, International Journal of Technology Management, Vol. 46, Nos 3/4, pp. 201–234.
  9. Chesbrough, H., Vanhaverbeke, W., West, J. (2006) Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
  10. Clark, J. (2013) Working Regions: Reconnecting Innovation and Production in the Knowledge Economy, Routledge, London/New York.
  11. Cosgrave, E., Arbuthnot, K., Tryfonas, T., (2013) ‘Living Labs, Innovation Districts and Information Market places: A Systems Approach for Smart Cities’, Procedia Computer Science, Vol. 16 (2013), pp. 668 – 677.
  12. Crane, A., Matten, D., Moon J. (2004) ‘Stakeholders as Citizens? Rethinking Rights, Participation, and Democracy’, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 53, No. 1/2, Building Ethical Institutions for Business: Sixteenth Annual Conference of the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN) (Aug., 2004), pp. 107-122.
  13. Deakin, M. (2015) ‘From intelligent to smart cities’, In Deakin, M., Smart cities. Governing, modelling and analising the transition, Routledge, Oxfordshire.
  14. Etzkowitz, H., Leydesdorff, L. (2000) ‘The dynamics of innovation: From national systems and “Mode 2” to a triple helix of university-industry-government relations. Research Policy, Vol. 29, pp. 109–123.
  15. Freeman, R., Leed. D. E. (1983) ‘Stockholders and Stakeholders: A New Perspective on Corporate Governance’ Edward California Management Review, Spring 1983, ABI/INFORM Global.
  16. Freeman, R. E. (1984), Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach, Boston, MA: Pitman.
  17. Heikkinen, M. T., Mainela, T., Still, J., & Tähtinen, J. (2007) ‘Roles for managing in mobile service development nets’, Industrial Marketing Management, 36 (7), pp. 909–925.
  18. von Hippel, E. (2005) Democratizing Innovation, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA/London.
  19. Hollands, R. (2008), Will the real smart city please stand up?, City: analysis of urban trends, culture, policy, action 12:3, 2008.
  20. Gamble A., Kelly G. (2001), ‘Shareholder Value and the Stakeholder Debate in the UK’, Corporate Governance, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 110-11.
  21. JPI Urban Europe (2013) Urban Europe: Creating Attractive, Sustainable and Economically Viable Urban Areas. Joint Call for Proposals 2013, JPI Urban Europe.
  22. Juujärvi, S., Pesso, K. (2013) ‘Actor Roles in an Urban Living Lab: What Can We Learn from Suurpelto, Finland?’, Technology Innovation Management Review, November 2013, pp. 22–27.
  23. Kopyciński P. (2017), The neo-Weberian approach in innovation policy, (in:) Mazur S., Kopyciński P. (ed.), Public Policy and the Neo-Weberian State, Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge.
  24. Leminen, S. (2013) ‘Coordination and Participation in Living Lab Networks’, Technology Innovation Management Review, November 2013, pp. 5-14.
  25. Leminen, S., Westerlund, M. (2017) ‘Categorization of Innovation Tools in Living Labs’, Technology Innovation Management Review, January 2017, Volume 7, Issue 1, pp. 15-25.
  26. Miles, S. (2011) ‘Stakeholder Definitions: Profusion and Confusion’, EIASM 1st interdisciplinary conference on stakeholder, resources and value creation, IESE Business School, University of Navarra, Barcelona.
  27. Miles, S. (2012). ‘Stakeholders: essentially contested or just confused?’, Journal of Business Ethics. 108 (3): 285–298.
  28. Mitchell, W. (2005), Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
  29. Mitroff, I. (1983), Stakeholders of the organizational mind, San Francisco, CA: Jossey‐Bass, 1983.
  30. Mulgan, G. (2012), Social innovation theories: Can theory catch up with practice, Welfare and Civil Society.
  31. Murray, R., Caulier-Grice, J., Mulgan, G. (2010). The Open Book of Social Innovation. NESTA, UK.
  32. Nyström, A. G., Leminen, S., Westerlund, M., Kortelainen, M. (2014) ‘Actor roles and role patterns influencing innovation in living labs’, Industrial Marketing Management 43 (2014), pp. 483–495.
  33. OECD/Eurostat (2005). Oslo Manual: Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Innovation Data, 3rd edition. OECD Publishing, Paris.
  34. OECD (2011), OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, OECD Publishing.
  35. Ogburn, W. F. (1966) Social change: With respect to cultural and original nature, Oxford England: Delta Books.
  36. Paskaleva, K. (2015) ‘E-governance as an enabler of the smart city, In Deakin, M. (ed.), Smart cities. Governing, modelling and analising the transition, Routledge, Oxfordshire.
  37. Perjo, L., Fredricsson, Ch., Costa, S. O. (2016) Public-Private-People Partnership in Urban Planning, Baltic Urban City Lab.
  38. Rasche, A., Morsing, M.; Moon, J. (2017) Corporate Social Responsibility: Strategy, Communication, Governance. Camebridge University Press.
  39. Scholl, Ch., Kemp R. (2016) ‘City Labs as Vehicles for Innovation in Urban Planning Processes’, Urban Planning 2016,Volume 1, Issue 4, pp. 89–102.
  40. Shiller, D. (1999), Digital Capitalism: Networking the Global Market System. Massachusetts: MIT.
  41. Scholl, Ch., Eriksen, M. A., Baerten. N., Clark, E., Drage, T., Essebo, M., Hoeflehner, T., de Kraker, J., Rijkens-Klomp, N., Seravalli, A., Wachtmeister, A., Wlasak P., (eds.), (2017). Guidelines for Urban Labs, URB@Exp project 2014-2017, JPI Urban Europe.
  42. Schumpeter, J.A., (1911) (2008), The Theory of Economic Development: An Inquiry into Profits, Capital, Credit, Interest and the Business Cycle, translated from the German by Redvers Opie, New Brunswick (U.S.A) and London (U.K.): Transaction Publishers.
  43. The Young Foundation (2012) Social Innovation Overview: A deliverable of the project: The theoretical, empirical and policy foundations for building social innovation in Europe (TEPSIE), European Commission – 7th Framework Programme, Brussels: European Commission, DG Research.
  44. Tholons (2017) Tholons Services Globalization Index 2017: http://www.tholons.com/ Tholonstop100/TholonsTop100-2017v.7.pdf (Accessed June 2018).
  45. Torfing, J. (2016) Collaborative Innovation in the Public Sector, Georgetown University Press, Washington DC.
  46. United Nation, Sustainable Development Goals, http://www.un.org/sustainabledeve lopment (Accessed March 2018).
  47. Urb@exp Project. [online] http://www.urbanexp.eu (Accessed August 2017).
  48. Voytenko, Y., McCormick, K., Evans, J., Schwila, G. (2016) ‘Urban living labs for sustainability and low carbon cities in Europe: Towards a research agenda’, Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 123, 45–54.
  49. Westerlund, M., Leminen, S. (2011) ‘Managing the challenges of becoming an open innovation company: Experiences from Living Labs’, Technology Innovation Management Review, October 2011, pp. 19–25.
  50. World Bank & European Network of Living Labs (2014) Citizen-Driven Innovation: A Guidebook for City Mayors and Public Administrators. World Bank & European Network of Living Labs, Brussels.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Similar Articles

1-10 of 134

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.