Design and creativity in open innovation processes: The case of Italian industrial districts

Abstract

This paper discusses the topic of collaborative innovation as a social process that involves the exchange of knowledge focused on the existence of dense social fabric relationships between potential problem solvers (e.g. designers, suppliers, research institutions) to generate innovation. Innovation networks are developed either through market (traded interdependencies) or not-for-market (untraded interdependencies) relationships, the latter facilitated by spatial proximity. Territories and cities with their local communities are therefore also crucial in collaborative innovation processes. The territories are now recognized as a repository of local knowledge based on the experiences of those who live in that specific context, but shared with producers, workers and end-users. Today a “cognitive role” is attributed to the territory: first, it provides knowledge instrumental to the production system and also promotes, under certain conditions, a converging of talented people, values and social behaviors that determine the very meaning of life and production in the territory. The challenge for companies lies in the ability to combine exogenous factors (architectures of collaborative innovation) with endogenous factors, the latter related to territorial contexts that stimulate, enhance and channel individual expressions of creativity. The cases of some Italian industrial districts specialized in design-oriented products exemplify interesting governance architectures, significantly different from the standard open-innovation of Anglo-Saxon contexts.

Key words: territory, industrial district, open innovation, design- driven innovation, creativity.