… Is Senior Research Fellow, head of the open and user innovation research group and the principal investigator of the joint research project “Open Foresight”.
Daniel received his PhD in 2013 from Hamburg University of Technology for his research on joining decisions contingent on the micro foundations of openness in open collaborative innovation communities. Prior his academic path, he studied Technology Management at the University of Stuttgart (Germany) and Nottingham (England) and worked from 2007 to 2011 as management advisor at the consulting firm Accenture in the domain of technology strategy and product development.
- Habilitation Project: User-Producer-Collaboration
Open collaborations are new organizational forms for product development, which even perform in competitive environments. Distributed volunteers and users in communities create products and exhibit a new source of innovations, beyond the boundaries of the firm. This socio-economic environment challenges current organizational thinking, but also opens new opportunities. Firms can benefit by integrating innovative (lead) users in their product development process. Another opportunity is exploring weak signals early by integrating these distributed creative minds within the foresight process. From the view of independent inventors, they face significant challenges, e.g. in exploiting their developments, finding production capacities, or refine ideas for commercialization. As a result, helpful insights and developments are frequently vanished, which also creates a loss for society. However, a collaboration between firms and users would benefit both groups and society. A collaboration opens an avenue to recognize trends and upcoming product requirements, as well as to include independent minds for superior innovation exploration and exploitation.
Current research concentrates most frequently on the collaboration between firms, but neglects collaborations with and among users. The objective of this research is to understand the collaborations of firms and users, particularly their exchange relationships and integration within the foresight and new product development process. By revealing antecedents of partnering and contingency factors for cooperation we build the base for successful innovation, beyond the boundaries of the firm. We strengthen innovation performance and create a bridge particularly for small and medium sized enterprises to cope with upcoming requirements and integrate distributed users for impactful innovation and strategy development.
This research project constitutes a work package of the Open Foresight research group made possible by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Ministry of Science and Research within their initiative to enable excellent research. We are thankful for the received grant for the proposal “Open Foresight zur strategischen Sicherstellung der Innovationsfähigkeit von KMU“.
- Current research project: Open Foresight
Open collaborations are new organizational forms for product development, which even perform in competitive environments. Distributed volunteers and users in communities create products and exhibit a new source of innovations, beyond the boundaries of the firm. This socio-economic environment challenges current organizational thinking, but also opens new opportunities. One opportunity is identifying weak signals early by integrating these distributed creative minds within the innovation and foresight process. Current research concentrates most frequently on the collaboration between firms, but neglects collaborations with and among users. The objective of my research is to understand the collaborations of firms and users, particularly their exchange relationships and integration within the foresight process. Thus the project Open Foresight aims to integrate knowledge of distributed users within the planning process. We strive for a impactful and cost-effective product development, getting away from sporadic innovations to structured innovation pipelines.
- Completed research project: Self-Selection in Open Source Communities
I study distributed innovation within the context of organizational influences and competitive dynamics. Distributed innovation has phenomenally risen within the last years and iconic products like Linux or Wikipedia emerged, representing break through ideas and concepts known as Open Source Innovations. User volunteer in communities outside the boundaries of the firm and collaboratively develop new products that challenge incumbent firms and organizational behavior, while at the same time satisfy heterogeneous user needs. Considering communities as sources of innovation, my research concentrates on user self-selection and understanding mechanism of attracting volunteers in autonomous collaborations. The research is grounded empirically merging aspects of economics and psychology to grasp complex social interactions and derive implications for strategy, organizational behavior and R&D management.
Joining Decisions in Open Collaborative Innovation Communities: A Discrete Choice Study