In contrast to stakeholders, archetypes of users, demographic users groups, and user typologies, in extant studies on user roles in living labs are rare and scattered. This study distinguishes a stakeholder and an actor from its role(s), where stakeholders include a variety of actors, such as users, citizens, public organisations, academia, research organisations and firms, involved as a part of living lab activities. This study defines a role as an expected behaviour of a stakeholder or an actor in a particular position rather than referring to a stakeholder or an actor itself, or their archetypes, demographic groups, and typologies.
Extant studies on living labs are ambiguous as to whether a stakeholder represents an individual in an organisation or an individual represents an organisation. This study emphasises that stakeholders represent their organisations or community; thus, a role represents the collective role of the actor in living labs. Among studies on user roles in living labs, Hoving (2003) proposes that users are co-producers of innovations. She notes that researchers operate within living labs and therefore are able to both monitor “from the inside” and
“intervene in order to contribute to a better implementation of technological innovations” (Hoving (2003, 4). Even Hoving (2003) labels users as co-
producers, but does not clearly explain the role. Thus, her study does not define the user role or explain the activities users are involved in. Similar to Hoving (2003), Ballon et al. (2005) identify users as co-producers in living labs, where users interact and exchange views with developers in living labs. Boronowsky et al. (2006a) and Vérilhac (2011) propose that users act as co-developers, when technologies are developed in relation to social contexts and needs. CoreLabs (2007) in turn proposes that users may take different user roles, and their study labels the roles as contributors and co-creators in innovation activities. The living lab roadmap study (CoreLabs, 2007) incorporates users (people, users and buyers) who take active roles in the research, development and innovation process.
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Vérilhac (2011) proposes test users as an additional role, where users test innovative products, services and business models. Tang et al. (2012) in turn suggest that users may act as end users (consumers), testers, and co-creators of services; thus, users have multiple roles. However, the authors are ambiguous when defining and explaining user roles. The authors mentioned such roles and explained user activities rather than linking such activities to the proposed user roles. Sauer (2013) suggests three user roles including designers, testers, and co-
creators in living labs. Similar to the other prior studies, she is ambiguous in her
definition of the specific user roles. The author couples many living lab activities to user roles but fails to clearly offer explicit definitions for them. The present study interprets her three user roles as follows. In the first user role, a designer refers to a user that learns with a specific design problem by creating, developing, and prototyping technological artefacts. A tester refers to a user that tests, implements and validates technologies but also monitors people acting with the technologies. The last user role, a co-creator, creates something new, such as a product or service, together with other participants and is equal to other stakeholders. This study views that the roles suggested by Sauer (2013) are similar to the prior suggested roles.
Taken together, extant studies on user roles are rare and scattered, and such user roles are inadequately defined in studies on living labs. The present study suggests that many of the identified user roles are similar. This study merges the user roles of ‘contributor’, ‘co-producer’, ‘co-developer’, and ‘designer’ and labels them as a ‘contributor’ user role. This study also merges ‘test user’ and ‘tester’, and labels them as a ‘tester’ user role. To sum up, prior studies on living labs identify three user roles: tester, contributor and co-creator.
Some scattered descriptions of the other stakeholder roles exist in the literature on living labs. Prior studies on stakeholder roles are ambiguous in explaining stakeholder roles. This study underlines that such prior studies describe stakeholders rather than their roles. Similar to user roles, studies on living labs are ambiguous in explaining stakeholder roles. For example, Hoving (2003) describes a researcher (a stakeholder) as an actor rather than a role, where the researcher monitors innovation activities and seldom intervenes in the activities to contribute better implementation in social practices. Similarly, Kipp and Schellhammer (2008) and Arnkil et al. (2010) mainly document various stakeholders rather than explaining their roles in living labs. In addition, Kipp
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and Schellhammer (2008) identify the roles initiator and mediator. The former role identifies needed actors in living labs. This role is similar to a previously identified role of a webber by Heikkinen et al. (2007). The latter role aligns interests and smooths the collaboration in living labs. Ebbesson and Svensson (2012, 2013) propose that a researcher acts as a facilitator when co-creating services and balancing innovation activities. The role of facilitator is a similar role as described earlier by Heikkinen et al. (2007). Ebbesson and Svensson (2013) include the additional role of the researcher as a manager in living labs. The authors are ambiguous in explaining the manager role. However, the present study interprets that the role includes many activities and distinct stakeholder roles of innovation networks as documented by Heikkinen et al. (2013). When comparing the roles to the extant classification of stakeholder roles in innovation networks by Heikkinen et al. (2007), one new stakeholder role, the mediator, emerges in living labs.
Prior literature on living labs explains multiple activities of stakeholders rather than having multiple roles or their dynamics and patterns. Studies on living labs assume that stakeholders are coupled to multiple activities and that the same stakeholder may pursue multiple activities. For example, Arnkil et al. (2010) claim that the same stakeholder can pursue multiple activities rather than just a single one. Kusiak (2007) proposes that a living lab approach relies on the multi- role and multi-faceted involvement of a customer. Similar to Arnkil et al. (2010), Kusiak (2007) refers to activities rather than roles. Thus, customers are a part of multiple and subsequent activities including offering innovative ideas, validating design, and having dialogue with a ‘producer’ rather than having multiple roles. Almirall and Wareham (2009) broadens this view by proposing that users may play the ‘dual role’ of provider in a living lab, where the authors explain that users may simultaneously be a source of innovation and an ‘innovation enabler. ’ The authors are ambiguous in explaining the dual role of the user; rather, they refer to the simultaneous multiple activities of user. This study perceives the dual role of users, where users may simultaneously act as source of innovation and transform the needs of users into real products or services.
To sum up, extant studies on roles in living lab networks, particularly with respect to user and stakeholder roles, often explain the various stakeholders, and particularly users, in living labs and couple them to living labs activities (please see the actor and activity perspective in Chapter 3.1.3) rather than explicitly
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introducing and defining user and stakeholder roles. This study claims that the extant literature on living labs provides some scattered studies of user and stakeholder roles, but that they are inadequately defined. More specifically, this study encompasses the identified user and stakeholder roles to understand and document innovation practices grounded on open innovation principles. The literature on living labs include three user roles: a tester, a contributor, and a co-
creator, and one stakeholder role: a mediator, and twelve roles suggested in
innovation networks including a webber, an instigator, a gatekeeper, an
advocate, a producer, a planner, an entrant, an auxiliary, a compromiser, a facilitator, an aspirant, and an accessory provider. Studies on living labs
propose that stakeholders may pursue and undertake multiple simultaneous activities rather than multiple roles. This study underlines that, although the extant studies on innovation networks describe stakeholder roles in innovation networks, user and stakeholder roles and their role dynamics are poorly understood in living labs. More specifically, this study underlines the extant research gap on user and stakeholder roles and their dynamics in living labs, where the literature on living labs deserves more research on understanding user and stakeholder roles and their dynamics. To conclude the discussion of stakeholder and user roles, this study applies such “perspectives”, stakeholder and user roles, as a part of an innovation triangle of living labs as the framework of this study when developing and concluding the framework in Chapter 4 (see Figure 7). Next, this study discusses innovation outcomes in living labs.