Sensorica as a New Configuration of Collaborative Work
* Article: From Open Innovation to Crowd Sourcing: A New Configuration of Collaborative Work? By Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay and Amina Yagoubi. American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, Vol.07 No.03 (2017)
URL = http://file.scirp.org/Html/7-2120891_75097.htm
Abstract
"In the era of the digital economy (ICT, Internet Objects, Cloud, Big and Open Data, etc.), we observe important transformations linked to this digital revolution [1] , including development of collaborative and participative platforms, the rise of inter-company, inter-organization and inter-network collaborations, as well as the development of sharing and open innovation dynamics (crowd sourcing, crowd funding, maker space, Fab Lab, Innovation Laboratory Open, etc.). We wanted to better understand how innovation was developed in this context and to this end, we conducted a thorough study of an open-value network aimed at developing innovative products. The network studied, Sensorica, is organized around three fundamental pillars, each with a specific role: an association, the NPO, for governance, a network of companies for commercialization and an open, international community for collaborative work and the development of innovation. It is thanks to a platform on the internet that individual workers, motivated by the values of the peer to peer (P2P) or participative economy are involved in creating together innovations on distributed projects. In the context of participatory economics, this network illustrates new forms of cooperation, ways of managing collaborations based on the model of P2P, based on a partnership of shared values system."
Excerpt
From the conclusions:
"Our research and analysis of this case study made it possible to better understand how projects could operate in P2P and open source. It also contributed to documenting the specific case of Sensorica, as there has not been much research and documentation of such types of cases. Indeed, if there is a plethora of theoretical writings on the sharing and collaborative economy, as well as on open innovation, there are actually few cases documented on the practical operation of these open and collaborative innovation processes. Our interviews with members of Sensorica also show that there are many very different values in what is called the collaborative economy. If organizations like Uber are sometimes associated with the collaborative or sharing economy, the case documented here distinguishes itself by its values and mode of collaborative development of its products. It goes much further as a case of open and participatory process of innovation. Sensorica does not wish to be associated with a simple platform on the net; although it uses this type of technique or tool, the organization differs greatly from other cases by the values implemented and by a very different participatory organizational project.This open innovation and collaborative project is definitely very innovative, although somewhat difficult to grasp, since its members are spread out across the globe. It is for this reason that we felt it important to try to document a case from interviews of members who have participated in this project for a few years already.
Regarding the limits of the research, given that we had chosen an exemplary study based on a single case in Quebec, we were limited to this single case, as there were currently very few similar cases in the world. In the future, it would of course be interesting to compare this model to others which appear to be similar. This could be the object of future research. Moreover, it would be interesting to gather other views, such as those of crowd-workers of the collaborative platform, on the organization of work, working methods, motivations and benefits. This remains to be done in future work; the challenge remains to identify similar cases and to reach the workers in their various locations.Another aspect that could be the object of future research is the question of reputation in networks of open source and peer to peer communities, as reputation certainly plays a fundamental role in the trust established between members of the network, and in terms of cooperation and compensation. A member of Sensorica confirms this questioning. “You have a certain reputation in a community, it can be recognized by another community, and then it has some value. That’s something we are working on now”. These are some ideas for future research but this in-depth study of one case has highlighted the characteristics of the modes of collaboration associated with these new forms of networks and the type of work observed in an open innovation network."