At a time when remote work is increasingly up for debate among companies, it remains an often underestimated lever for fostering open innovation. This article examines how initiatives designed to encourage collaborative work outside the workplace can contribute to the development of open innovation.

Open innovation traditionally refers to purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge across firm boundaries. Through various collaborations with external entities, firms will be able to be more innovative and accelerate their product development process whatever their sector. Our latest research explores the reasons why remote working is frequently undervalued as a means of open innovation.

Companies, both large and medium sized, operating in various sectors tend to use co-working spaces and makerspaces to support their open innovation initiatives.

This approach is particularly relevant in cases where co-working spaces and makerspaces function as “open labs”. They offer a physical location that acts as a symbolic totem place, an innovation-driven community, and a set of services (incubators, coaching, etc.) that promote experimentation across a variety of specific subjects.

Some companies send their employees to these open labs, where they become affiliated coworkers within the open lab communities. These affiliated workers spend varying amounts of time there, from a few days a week to regular full week residency over several months or even years. Although affiliated coworkers represent only a small proportion of open lab residents, they have a specific profile, driven by individual motivations such as curiosity and open mindedness, as well as organisational targets set by their employer.

Exploring hubs where innovation thrives

From the firms’ perspective, regularly sending employees to work in open labs reflects........

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