Unveiling Human-Related Challenges in a Convergence-Driven Open Innovation Project: Evidences from an Action Research Case

The convergence of technologies, often from different industries, brings new collaboration partners to the table. Unfortunately, our understanding of how these boundary-spanning collaboration projects work and what needs to be done so as to increase the odds for success is relatively poor. This chapter describes the case of the project IQBID, which brought together professionals from universities and different industrial environments to develop a novel system that significantly increases the comfort and energy efficiency of buildings. Within an action research framework, several challenges that were endangering the advancement of the project were uncovered, such as inexistence of a common business vision. However, the underlying problem was issues of human-related nature in the form of communication incongruities, different expectations, individual interests and lack of trust. The research team developed an intervention that could successfully deal with unspoken issues and lead to a shared business strategy. Thus, by analysing a specific case of convergence, this chapter seeks to contribute to open innovation research by linking the relatively unexplored context of technology convergence with the human aspect of collaboration.