Rethinking the management of ideas contests in high-tech environment: the case of generic technology
Résumé
Following the open innovation paradigm, many technological firms organize idea contests to surface bright ideas for new products, services or business models. This article focuses on a new form of innovation contest: the generic technology idea contest, which aims to design technological platforms that can enable emerging applications in various business domains to be economically addressed. Based on the analysis of a series of innovation contests conducted by STMicroelectronics, this research points out main elements of the generic technology ideas contest: challenge initiation, idea generation and collection, genericity identification, enrichment and its reward system. The findings indicate that such innovation contests do not fundamentally establish commercial relations between seekers and solvers as usually described in the literature. Rather, this type of contests aims to build design communities who are able to collectively explore the potential of technological platforms. Managerial recommendations, key mechanisms for enhancing the genericity of ideas and probing questions are formulated to facilitate the organization of generic technology innovation contests by high-tech firms.