Exploring brokering situations in an innovation boundary context

This paper is based on studies of a living lab process, which is an open, usercentric, innovation approach, where several actors from industry, user groups and academia are involved. We aim to describe and analyze the dynamics in an innovation boundary context based on a living lab process. An action-oriented research approach was applied and the empirical results are from The Find Project (TFP), with the aim of customizing an ICT product based on the needs of a user group. The findings are analyzed from a community of practice perspective where the three different communities i) researchers from Halmstad Living Lab (HLL), ii) ICT developers (ICTD), and iii) next of kin’s to demented elderly persons (NOKD) represented the units of analysis. The analysis identified several boundary situations that played a vital role for the innovation process. The contribution of our research to innovation theory is a process model describing the dynamics in an innovation boundary context with regard to boundary objects-in-use as well as to brokering. The research highlights two different levels of brokering: i) product/service brokering; and ii) process brokering.