Building Collaborative Information Platforms: A Strategic Niche Management Approach

This paper studies the problem of building a collaborative information platform from a transition perspective. We acknowledge the consistent finding that building a platform for information sharing requires a drastic change in organizations, which affects their stance in the innovation process. The theoretical perspective matches this framing of the problem as a process comprising distinct stages of transition, each with its own dynamics. We offer three views on inclusive innovation. Through a nested case study on a large-scale, challenging innovation programme we demonstrate that these do not necessarily compete for offering the best explanation, but offer value when combined. Our case also shows that in an innovation process, it may be helpful or indeed even necessary to go through multiple of these approaches and employ strategies from each of the different theoretical perspectives.