LIVING LABS AND BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION: INSIGHTS FROM SMEs AND START-UPS

Living labs (LLs) have become a widespread approach to promote innovation. In front of this growing popularity, scholars are attempting diverse approaches to understand and evaluate their benefits for their stakeholders and society. This paper aims to complement our understanding of the benefits for an SME or start-up to integrate an LL by adopting a business model innovation (BMI) perspective. Thanks to multiple case studies, we identify patterns linking organisational context, LL activities and outcomes related to the design and implementation phase of the BMI process. From our analysis, we derive a processual model that highlights key mechanisms enabled by LLs, such as experimentation, learning and legitimation, that contribute together to the successful design and implementation of BMI. For SMEs, our results suggest LLs can reduce uncertainty situated between the development and implementation of an innovation.