Summary of Literature Review

To wrap up this literature review section, we start by acknowledging the immense heterogeneity in Living Labs (Ballon & Schuurman, 2015). Those Living Labs have diverse objectives, structures, characteristics, activities, methodologies, as well as research work (Leminen, 2015; Schuurman et al., 2015).

There are various activities carried out under the fancy name of Living Labs to create awareness.

Nevertheless, researchers have been working to identify and build some common understanding, characteristics, and divergences of Living Labs (Følstad, 2008; Greve, 2020;

Greve et al., 2017). Studies have assessed the variety of user roles and the relation to innovation outcome, as well as the corresponding characteristics of Living Labs in the innovation process (Dutilleul et al., 2010; Leminent et al., 2015; Liedtke, Welfens, Rohn, & Nordmann, 2012;

Westerlund & Leminen, 2011).

Living Labs as the open-innovation platforms enable actors, including innovators and users, to create innovative technologies via collaborative actions under the real-world settings and share the values among the network (Leminen, 2012). We walk through the innovation process, figuring out that it is a comprehensive process with multiple stages/steps that should not be

40 decided by the companies or organizations alone. Instead, it is full of inclusive, flexible, and agile actions with users and other relevant actors (Cooper & Sommer, 2016).

We use open innovation and RI as the two building blocks for constructing this Living Lab theoretical framework as well as the base for exploring user involvement within Living Labs.

It aligns with what Greve (2020) has suggested that the Living Lab research should reach out to the mature mainstream research areas such as open innovation. We ought to see the advantage and disadvantages of integrating each one. Open innovation is the foundation of Living Lab theory, providing the ground for innovators to open up to the external environment and unite the entire innovation network. Studies on Living Labs will contribute to the research avenues of open innovation as well (Greve, 2020). On another note, open innovation is abstract, and it lacks practical recommendations for Living Labs, especially user involvement, making it challenging for practitioners.

RI is a core guideline for Living Labs for engaging stakeholders, customers/users, showing the necessity and potential of conducting societal-ethical innovation, but it is more like normative standards or regulations without enough practical information (Silva et al., 2019). The four-dimensional framework is a practicable measurement for developing more profound insights.

RI itself still has a lot to improve in terms of clarification of the concepts and terms, practical approaches, measures, and ways of incorporation into the existing methodologies (Blok &

Lemmens, 2015; Koops, 2015). Living Labs and other innovators should not take RI merely as a ‘top-down’ directive (Oftedal, Foss, et al., 2019). Instead, they have to take more initiatives to fine-tune the process of integration and adoption into their innovation strategy and process.

We did not find much in the prior work regarding a systematic integration of Living Lab with some main-stream theories like open innovation and responsible innovation. Meanwhile, it has already acknowledged that more cross-disciplinary perspectives will enrich the research in both Living Labs and the mainstream theories (Greve, 2020).

User involvement is a result of evolution from the traditional in-house development to an open co-creation with users. It is noteworthy that more concepts related to Living Labs should be clarified, such as these important ones like ‘user-centric’ ‘user-driven’ ‘co-creation’. The common understanding of critical concepts has a direct impact on the literature development and practical implementation of Living Labs.

There can be challenges for companies in adopting the user-centric approach, as there is a great deal of work to do before the transition from old practices to new ones. Small companies

41 generally have advantages on the path to open innovator as they are more flexible in terms of structure and method, and agile in response to users (Niitamo et al., 2012; Westerlund &

Leminen, 2011). However, there is not enough attention has been paid to the applications of user-centric methodologies with Living Labs (Niitamo et al., 2012).

Living Labs in the early days pay more attention to users’ experiences with innovative products or services, and nowadays, they have a higher demand for new ways to integrate their work (Puerari et al., 2018). It becomes crucial for Living Labs and companies to learn and analyze the practical methodologies and tools to enable user involvement, which is one of the most necessary elements of Living Labs, during the innovation (CoreLabs, 2007).

While the studies suggest that the customized innovation process and tools are likely to lead to radical innovation, the findings also reveal that Living Labs are trying to simplify the operation and improve the efficiency by using standard approaches (Leminen, 2017). There is the highlight on the need for an in-depth understanding of the characteristics of Living Labs, the methodologies and tools for user and stakeholder engagement to integrate them with the practices during the technological product/service development process (Leminen &

Westerlund, 2017; Niitamo et al., 2012). Living Lab researchers and practitioners can perhaps learn from other theories like RI and its methodologies.

Living Labs studies surely have made achievements over a relatively short period; however, we also see there is room for improvement regarding the literature and practical development.

Overall, there is a lack of consensus on the Living Lab literature research, which is showing some emergence but still scattered (Greve, 2020).

We have to accept the extensive range of variety. The set-up of Living Labs range from small ones for temporary projects to large national or international ones involving the public, institutes, and big firms; the user groups can range from a small number of individuals to a massive group, online society for example (Ballon, 2015). The targeted industries, topics and stakeholders vary with each case. Therefore, there is certainly no single or few methods that can fit all Living Lab development, or stakeholder/user involvement. There is a demand for more research in the new application domain (Azzopardi & Balog, 2011; Ballon & Schuurman, 2015; Schaffers & Turkama, 2012). Furthermore, there is the call for systemic studies on methodologies for user involvement, which can be evaluated and applied under other circumstances.

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