Collaboration by design - on the use of value modeling in social innovation projects

Nowadays, many innovation projects are based on the collaboration of multiple parties to cocreate value. Unfortunately, the collaboration is not always without problems, not the least when financial and legal concerns come into the picture. Value modeling approaches such as e3-value have proven to be useful in the collaborative design of new value networks, but they are limited by their focus on the exchange of value rather than co-creation. In this paper, an extension to e3-value in the form of “value encounters” is introduced and applied to the problem of how to support open innovation projects. Value encounters are defined as interaction spaces where a group of actors meet and derive value by each one bringing in some of its own resources. Value encounter models can be adopted by innovation groups for the collective unfolding and reflexive understanding of their own innovation process in all its phases, including the newly envisioned practices that adopt the technology. Each phase is a value encounter in its own, and translation is required when moving from one to another. In addition, the value model is a basis for developing and selecting adequate communication structures for each phase. The paper describes the main components of an innovation support method based on value encounter modeling and its application in a running Social Innovation project around contract design.