VOSS: Collaborative Research: Impact of In-Process Moderation on Open Innovation Collaboration

越来越多的公司和组织正在创造结构化的挑战，以刺激创新，解决经济和社会问题。开放式创新虚拟组织的形成是为了响应“挑战号召”，描述需求，提供所需解决方案的规范，并设定提交截止日期。通常，这种挑战呼吁是在公共论坛上发出的，邀请那些有专业知识的人分享他们的解决方案，并鼓励最佳解决方案。此外，还建立了网络基础设施，以支持解决方案的开发和交付。解决方案提议者经常参与在线讨论论坛，其中建立了社会基础设施，并使用规范管理论坛行为。在挑战结束时，将向最佳解决方案提供商颁发奖项。在大多数挑战中提供的激励抑制了贡献者之间的知识共享，合作很少。因此，在解决方案开发中涉及多种和意想不到的创新来源的潜力有限。该项目将开发一个社会技术网络基础设施，以管理开放式创新虚拟组织中固有的紧张关系，鼓励开放式创新参与者之间的合作，同时调动开放创新挑战竞争所产生的能量和注意力。通过一系列开放创新自然实验，我们将比较各种干预措施，旨在告知参与者有关合作方式的贡献和确定有效的技术。挑战电话可以是一种有效的创新技术，将科学和工程应用于重要的社会问题。这些新平台正被用于寻找解决各种问题的方法，如开发经济的低能耗灯泡，集中药物发现，以及减少退伍军人在高等教育中面临的障碍。然而，目前在挑战中使用的方法阻碍了利用不同想法和产生更大创新所需的那种合作。该项目将制定方法，鼓励挑战参与者之间的合作，并帮助公共和私营部门组织为复杂问题找到新的创造性解决方案。

Increasingly, firms and organizations are creating structured challenges to spur innovation and address both economic and societal issues. Open innovation virtual organizations are formed to respond to a "challenge call" describing the need, providing specifications for desired solutions and setting a deadline for submissions. Usually, this challenge call is delivered on a public forum with an invitation to those with expertise to share their solutions and an incentive for the best solution. In addition, a cyberinfrastructure is established to support the development and delivery of solutions. Solution proposers often participate in an online discussion forum where a social infrastructure is established with norms governing forum behavior. At the end of the challenge, an award is announced to the best solution provider.The incentives provided in most challenges inhibit knowledge sharing among contributors and collaboration is rare. Consequently, there is limited potential to involve diverse and unexpected innovation sources in solution development. This project will develop a sociotechnical cyber infrastructure that manages the tensions inherent in open innovation virtual organizations to encourage collaboration among open innovation participants while mobilizing the energy and focus created by the competition of the open innovation challenge. Through a series of open innovation natural experiments we will compare various interventions aimed at informing participants about collaborative ways to contribute and identify effective techniques.Challenge calls can be an effective innovation technique applying science and engineering to important societal issues. These new platforms are being used to find solutions for such diverse problems as developing an economical low energy use lightbulb, focused drug discovery, and reducing barriers facing returning veterans in higher education. However, the methods currently used in challenges discourage the kind of collaboration that would be needed to leverage diverse ideas and generate greater innovation. This project will develop methods to encourage collaboration among challenge participants and help public and private sector organizations find new and creative solutions to complex problems.