The Yield of an Open Innovation Arena for Occupational Health and Safety Ideas in the Swedish Construction Industry

Abstract

The rationale behind our approach was that product innovations in occupational health and safety originate from radical innovation processes where ideas are tested naturally before any rational decisions are made. Our thesis therefore was that an open and subsidized radical innovation arena might counteract today's development imperfections and also be profitable to the society as a whole. In this study we critically scrutinized the implementation of such a publically open arena in the Swedish construction industry, which is an area with large costs for accidents and injuries. We used a two-step action research approach in order to compare the efficiency of a general arena (Innovation Stockholm) with a specialised health and safety arena, given the same radical supporting style and entrepreneurial culture. Our results confirmed our thesis: both arenas produced successful innovations and were profitable to the society as a whole. The specialised arena even doubled the efficiency for an idea to be in the market after 2 years: from 0.1 ideas to 0.25 ideas. In a general perspective we believe that our findings can contribute to the discussion on the “Open innovation” concept and how to reorganize the established “Science Park” innovation model.

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