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What criteria are used to judge a creative idea? We attempt to answer this question by analyzing 57 idea pitches from two start-up weekends. Following the scientific and managerial literature, we identify four conditions intrinsically linked to the idea and three conditions linked to the presenter that could influence the evaluation of an idea. A comparative case analysis in Fuzzy Set mode highlights three configurations of sufficient conditions for the positive evaluation of a pitch. In addition, a good enunciation of the pitch is found to be a necessary condition. This research therefore shows that the intrinsic qualities of an idea are not sufficient for it to be favorably evaluated; it must also be well presented. Conversely, good presentation is not enough; the idea must have intrinsic qualities to be favorably evaluated. In addition, the physical appearance of the pitcher can be an asset in the specific context of start-up weekends.JEL Codes: O31

Les grands acteurs du numérique exploitent des offres complexes de produits et services numériques basées sur le développement de portefeuilles de business models connectés. La littérature est cependant limitée pour comprendre comment gérer stratégiquement ce type de portefeuille. Pour combler ce gap, en analysant les cas d’Apple, de Google et de Microsoft, nous montrons que leurs portefeuilles de business models peuvent être gérés stratégiquement par la mise en place d’une architecture spécifique de business models connectés. Notre étude contribue ainsi à mieux comprendre le fonctionnement des portefeuilles de business models dans les secteurs numériques et met en évidence certains éléments clés de leur conception., Major digital players operate complex digital product and service offerings based on the development of portfolios of connected business models. However, the literature is limited in understanding how to strategically manage this type of portfolio. To fill this gap, by analyzing the cases of Apple, Google and Microsoft, we show that their business model portfolios can be strategically managed by implementing a specific architecture of connected business models. Our study thus contributes to a better understanding of how business model portfolios work in the digital sectors and highlights some key elements of their design., Los principales actores digitales operan ofertas complejas de productos y servicios digitales basadas en el desarrollo de carteras de modelos de negocio conectados. Sin embargo, la literatura es limitada en cuanto a la comprensión de cómo manejar estratégicamente este tipo de cartera. Para llenar este vacío, analizando los casos de Apple, Google y Microsoft, mostramos que sus carteras de modelos de negocio pueden ser gestionadas estratégicamente implementando una arquitectura específica de modelos de negocio conectados. Nuestro estudio contribuye así a una mejor comprensión del funcionamiento de las carteras de modelos de negocio en los sectores digitales y pone de relieve algunos elementos clave de su diseño.

La crise du Covid-19 crée une rupture sur le plan spatial et temporel. Pour « être seuls ensemble » lors du confinement, les individus se retrouvent dans des communautés en ligne. Dans ce contexte d’urgence sanitaire émerge des communautés de crise au sein desquelles il est possible d’identifier des caractéristiques propres. Éphémères et basées sur l’improvisation, elles sont ouvertes au plus grand nombre et à la diversité des participants, et se construisent sur des motivations sociétales de façon rapide avec une grande créativité dans les productions.

Les espaces de coworking sont consideres comme une nouvelle forme d’organisation du travail sans relations hierarchiques et a priori sans objectifs communs entre les membres. Toutefois dans ces tiers-lieux se developpent de nombreuses interactions sociales ponctuelles, informelles et quelquefois organisees. De plus, les caracteristiques d’ouverture, d’espace de socialisation et de partage de connaissances de ce type de lieu pourraient etre favorables a la creativite. Cet article propose ainsi d’etudier comment les espaces de coworking favorisent-ils la creativite des coworkers. A partir, d’une etude de cas unique, La Cordee, les resultats mettent en lumiere trois composantes qui soutiennent la creativite dans un espace de coworking : l’environnement de travail, des evenements et des outils et l’etat d’esprit des membres.Codes JEL : L20, M13, O31

This paper aims to identify the factors that influence the evaluation of an idea beyond its intrinsic values, especially those that relate to the presentation of the idea. With reference to a review of research conducted in the fields of psycho-sociology and psychology and using a qualitative comparative approach, the analysis of 57 pitches of entrepreneurial ideas during two start-up weekends shows that ideas receive the highest evaluation when they are judged to be the best in terms of novelty, feasibility, and relevance. However, our results also show that mastery by ideators of the basics of pitch presentation – especially clear enunciation – is also a necessary condition for acceptance of the idea by the audience. The paper seeks to contribute to the literature by identifying the most favorable configurations for a positive evaluation of an entrepreneurial idea in this type of innovation contest.

The digital age offers unprecedented opportunities for firms to access new knowledge for innovation. Both academics and managers have identified crowdsourcing (CS) as one relevant way to do so. CS for innovation involves outsourcing problem-solving or creative tasks to the crowd. To benefit from CS, absorptive capacity (ACAP) is critical; this can be enhanced by prior knowledge and past experience with a partner. However, in the CS con-text, firms open themselves up to undefined, anonymous partners through the Internet, hence the development of ACAP becomes more difficult. The literature on ACAP describes how internal integration mechanisms encourage the absorption of knowledge but fails to clearly address the way in which uncommon knowledge is integrated. Although literature has acknowledged the beneficial role of a wider spectrum of influential internal and external mechanisms on uncommon knowledge, few empirical studies have addressed the distinctive effect of these mechanisms on the absorption of anonymous partners’ knowledge. To fill this gap, this study identifies relevant integration mechanisms and how they impact upon different ACAP dimensions in the CS context. Five case studies reveal the distinctive influence of integration mechanisms depending on the nature of the CS activity. Our results extend research on ACAP in the little studied digital open context, investigating the absorption of uncommon knowledge from unidentified partners. From a managerial perspective, this study shows that managers need to pay attention to integration mechanisms in order to support the absorption of knowledge from the crowd. More precisely, our study suggests that the main focus should not be on external mechanisms, but also on internal mechanisms. Finally, we open up a new theoretical debate on how these mechanisms should be combined.

This paper questions the impact of team gender composition on idea generation and idea evaluation? Based on econometric analyses of evaluations of 100 product ideas proposed by 463 students, it shows that ideas supported by teams mostly composed of either males or females are as creative as ideas supported by mixed teams when they are evaluated by experts. When these ideas are evaluated by peers, the ideas supported by mixed teams are perceived as being less creative than ideas supported by teams that are predominantly composed of either males or females., Cet article examine l’impact de la composition des équipes créatives, en terme de genre, sur la génération et l’évaluation des idées. Une analyse économétrique réalisée sur l’évaluation de 100 idées de produits nouveaux proposées par 463 étudiants montre que les idées proposées par des équipes majoritairement composées de garçons ou de filles sont aussi créatives que les équipes mixtes quand elles sont évaluées par des experts. Quand elles sont évaluées par des paires, les idées proposées par des équipes mixtes sont perçues comme moins créatives que les idées proposées par des équipes majoritairement composées de garçons ou de filles., Este artículo examina la influencia que ejerce la composición de equipos creativos, en términos de género, en la generación y evaluación de ideas. Un análisis econométrico realizado sobre la evaluación de 100 ideas de nuevos productos desarrolladas por 463 estudiantes muestra que las ideas propuestas por equipos predominantemente compuestos de hombres o mujeres son tan creativas como las ideas propuestas por equipos mixtos cuando éstas son evaluadas por expertos. Cuando se evalúan por parejas, las ideas propuestas por los equipos mixtos son percibidas como menos creativas que las ideas propuestas por equipos compuestos predominantemente por hombres o mujeres.

La mondialisation impose aux organisations d’innover et se renouveler à un rythme très rapide. Dans un tel contexte, les idées s’imposent comme une ressource centrale et stratégique que l’organisation doit gérer et développer. La créativité organisationnelle devient donc un enjeu de différentiation pour les organisations, et même une réponse à l’enjeu de survie des organisations. Nous proposons d’enrichir les débats relatifs à la créativité organisationnelle en management stratégique en abordant la question de la gestion des idées créatives, de leurs libres parcours dans et en dehors de l’organisation, et de l’émergence de la créativité organisationnelle en tant que capacité créative. Nous concluons par des pistes de recherche à explorer pour caractériser les capacités créatives, et les considérer comme des capacités organisationnelles à part entière., Globalization requires organizations to innovate and to renew themselves at a very rapid pace. In such a context, ideas are a critical resource that organizations must manage and develop. As a consequence, organizational creativity becomes a lever of differentiation, and sometimes even a response to the issue of survival. We propose to enrich the debate on organizational creativity in strategic management by addressing the management of creative ideas, their flow within and outside of organizations, and the emergence of organizational creativity as an organization-level creative capacity. We conclude by proposing several avenues for future related to the nature of creative capacities and especially their recognition as organizational capacities in their own right., La globalización exige que las organizaciones innoven y se renueven a un ritmo muy rápido. En este contexto, las ideas constituyen un recurso crítico que las organizaciones deben gestionar y desarrollar. Como consecuencia, la creatividad organizacional se convierte en una herramienta de diferenciación y, a veces, incluso en una respuesta al problema de la supervivencia. En este número especial, proponemos enriquecer el debate sobre la creatividad organizacional en el marco de la gestión estratégica, abordando la gestión de ideas creativas, su flujo dentro y fuera de las organizaciones, y la emergencia de la creatividad organizacional como una capacidad creativa a nivel de la organización. Concluimos proponiendo varias líneas de trabajo relacionadas con la naturaleza de las capacidades creativas y especialmente su reconocimiento como capacidades organizativas en sí mismas.

International audience; Faced with the limits of cooperative approaches to business model in optimizing the value creation and value capture, we propose here a new multi-sided business model architecture adapted to digital industries which allows considering new opportunities to create and capture value, for the growth and survival of innovative SMEs.

Purpose This study aims to examine the way to develop a multi-sided logic for existing business models. More precisely, the objective is to find rules for designing a multi-sided business model from a one-sided business model. Design/methodology/approach Given that business model (BM) literature and multi-sided literature do not address the complex issue of multi-sided business model design, the authors propose here a set of six redesign operations. These operations are built from a comprehension of the development and evolution of multi-sided platforms and their consequences for business model architecture. Several empirical cases illustrate each operation. Findings A process of business model redesign is proposed with three phases: setting-up a technological digital platform to support the multi-sided architecture, identifying and engaging several customer groups on the platform and linking the customer groups and structuring the revenue model. This process details the chronological order in which the redesign operations can be implemented to build a multi-sided BM. Practical implications The importance of the stage of semi-finished development of the platform, the openness of digital content, reaching the critical threshold and the combination of a dual economic model (free/paid) is highlighted. For managers, this provides better practices to successfully manage the business model redesign process. Originality/value This paper helps managers in companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, to profit from a multi-sided business model by proposing a way to achieve it.

La révolution numérique est un levier pour la création de nouveaux business models ouverts sur internet. Toutefois, l’ouverture reste complexe à mettre en œuvre dans une architecture traditionnelle de business model car elle implique des risques et contraintes difficiles à gérer. Dans cette perspective, nous mobilisons la littérature sur les plateformes multifaces et deux études de cas dans le jeu vidéo en ligne pour proposer une architecture multiface, plus adaptée à la gestion de l’ouverture. En créant des faces complémentaires sur la proposition de valeur mais interdépendantes sur la création et la capture de valeur, il est possible d’ouvrir une partie du business model, pour accéder aux bénéfices de l’ouverture tout en limitant ses contraintes.

The sharing economy is a growing sector that is profiting from digitalization by developing multi-sided platforms allowing users to create and manage valuable transactions around products and services. However, for companies, this type of platform requires the implementation of opening processes to provide internal resources in order to help users interact between them and to innovate. This poses a problem of the openness control of boundaries of the company and the platform, which the present research proposes to study. Through the comparative study of several multi-sided platforms, we show that the control mechanisms depend on the type of boundary and the nature of the opening. We also analyze the role of the platform, technological tools and governance in the dynamic management of these boundaries, and the management of open innovation.JEL Codes: O31, O35

La littérature en créativité prône l’impact positif de la diversité au sein du groupe créatif mais s’intéresse peu à la place de la diversité de genre et à son impact sur la qualité de la créativité du groupe. Cet article questionne l’impact de la composition du groupe en termes de genre sur la performance créative et sur le jugement que l’organisation peut avoir de la créativité des groupes. Il examine aussi l’effet du genre des évaluateurs sur l’évaluation des idées. Se fondant sur deux études expérimentales respectivement menées auprès de 99 professionnels et de 463 étudiants, nous confirmons qu’il n’y a pas de différence de performance créative entre hommes et femmes. En revanche, les hommes et les femmes évaluent différemment les idées. Enfin, s’il n’y a pas de plafond de verre d’idées émises par des femmes, les idées émises par les groupes mixtes sont moins sélectionnées par l’organisation.

The place and role of managing creativity in organizations appears as a growing concern amongst scholars as well as practitioners. The aim of this chapter is to situate and analyze how managing creativity should fit into the organizational framework orchestrated by the interactions between the management of knowledge and the management of innovation. In this contribution, we question the traditional view that places creativity at the preliminary stage of the innovation process. Following pioneering works on the management of creativity, we suggest in the following that managing creativity is equivalent to managing ideas, and argue that the main theoretical obstacle is that at the present stage ideas are mostly “black boxes” in innovation theories. In an effort to “open this black box”, we come to the suggestion that a major change of perspective is needed in management: instead of viewing the management of ideas as an initial stage of the innovation process, we propose an integrated framework where the processes of ideation and innovation are not sequential but coupled, and where these strategic interactions are mediated by knowledge-management processes. Such a change of perspective suggests drastic impacts on the ways to manage organizations, which are discussed in the conclusion of this chapter.

International audience; Crowdsourcing (CS) is the outsourcing of a task to a wide network of individuals through an open call on the Internet. Although extant literature has identified some of the difficulties associated with it, little is known about barriers to CS for innovation implementation. This article aims to identify these barriers and to study their influence during the implementation stage. From five study cases, we identify three categories of barriers that affect CS for innovation, and we highlight the importance of organizational barriers, specifically difficulties related to coordination with the crowd and the organizational adjustments required for the integration of CS for innovation.; Le crowdsourcing (CS) consiste à externaliser une tâche auprès d'un vaste réseau d'individus via un appel ouvert, le plus souvent réalisé par Internet. Malgré des difficultés identifiées dans la littérature, peu de recherches se sont intéressées aux barrières à l'adoption du CS pour innover. Cet article propose de les identifier et d'étudier leur importance lors de la phase de mise en oeuvre. À partir de cinq cas d'entreprises, nous identifions trois catégories de barrières qui influencent cette activité et soulignons l'effet des barrières organisationnelles, notamment sur les difficultés de coordination avec la foule et celles liées aux ajustements organisationnels nécessaires à l'intégration de l'activité.

International audience; The digital creative industries exemplify innovation processes in which user communities are highly involved in product and service development, bringing new ideas, and developing tools for new product uses and environments. We explore the role of user communities in such co-innovation processes via four case studies of interrelations between firms and their communities. The digitization and virtualization of firm/community interactions are changing how boundaries are defined and how co-innovation is managed. The transformation of innovation management is characterized by three elements: opening and redefining firm boundaries; opening of products and services to community input and reducing property rights; and reshaping organization and product identities. Innovation in collaboration with user communities requires firms to orchestrate their communities and their inter-relationships to encourage the creativity and motivation of users, and develop the community's innovatory capacity.

Today, innovating with a user community seems an effective strategy for developing a firm's innovation capacity. However, short-term benefits from this collaboration are no longer sufficient, and firms are now looking to develop a sustainable relationship with users, to maintain sustainable innovation. This study furthers our understanding of the way in which a user toolkit connected to a community serves to manage innovation of an existing product or service. The literature provides a limited understanding of the role of a user toolkit in the management of a sustainable innovation approach in firms. The research is based on a longitudinal case study of the video game Trackmania, which has an integrated toolkit connected to a large and active user community. Results confirm the crucial role of the toolkit in the construction, control and maintenance of a sustainable innovative approach with a user community. From the innovation perspective, the toolkit can be considered as a means of managing the boundary between the firm and the user community, because it enables the community to structure itself as a multi-sided platform, where all categories of users participate in value creation. Finally, we identify four modalities for managing sustainable innovation with a user community toolkit.

Fatigue cracking is surely the more common failure mode of marine structures. The return experience shows that in the majority of the cases, cracks start at welded joints and so the verification methods developed since the 70s deal with welded joints. More recent cases on FPSOs have shown that cracks can also start from non welded areas and the development of the ULCS (Ultra Large Container Ships) points out the necessity of methods for the hatch corners which are non welded areas. To provide a solution for the design of these ships Bureau Veritas developed a local stress S-N curve formulation including as-welded, non welded and improved welded details. The formulation is based on the accumulated knowledge in fatigue verification approaches since the 70s, the marine return experience and the analysis of available published data. The paper presents the development of the formulation starting by the definition of a S-N curve for as-welded joints covering the low and high cycle domains, then the extension of to the stress release welded joints with different R levels and finally the generalisation to non welded and improved welded details. The non-welded detail S-N curves include the effects of the yield strength on the low cycles domain and of the mean stress level on the slope of the high cycles domain. The defined S-N curves are calibrated versus existing methods for welded joints and mechanical component fatigue verification and also versus test data. Finally, an illustration of a practical application on two ship deck details is given showing acceptable results.

During ship life, operating conditions may change, tanker may be converted into FPSO, and flag requirements may be modified. Generally these modifications have few impacts on existing structures; flag requirements only rarely are to be applied retroactively. Nevertheless in some cases modifications of operating condition may induce considerable consequences, making in the worst cases impossible any reengineering. For example converting a common tanker, built with plain steel of grade A into an Offshore Floating Unit able operating in cold region, may require a grade change corresponding to a grade B. It is obviously meaningless to replace all material just because material certificates. Steels used by shipyards have to fulfill Classification society’s requirements dealing with mechanical strength; generally shipbuilding corresponds to a small part of steelmaker’s production. For this reason steelmakers are reluctant to produce steels with mechanical properties corresponding exactly to the minima required. They generally deliver steels already in stock, with higher mechanical characteristics than required. In this case it can be taken advantage of this common practice. In order to demonstrate that the material fulfill the requirements of grade B it has been decided to adopt a statistic approach. At this stage there are two main issues, the first one is that it is needed to provide evidences that the actual material Charpy V characteristics fulfill the requirements of grade B; the second one is to provide these evidences with a minimum testing. To assess this assumption a random check has been carried out. Different probabilistic model have been tested in order to check common approaches and probabilistic model based on physical considerations. In the paper the main assumptions for estimating the minimum Charpy value main assumption in the probabilistic models are recalled, the behavior of empirical sample is examined, the parameters of probability laws fitting the empirical distribution and definitely as accuracy of probability law parameters determination is not perfect with a finite number of specimens the uncertainty in the determination of parameters is taken into account with confidence limits. According to the selected probabilistic model the minimum value corresponds to an acceptable probability of failure, taking into account the target confidence level, or is independent of any acceptable probability of failure and is defined with the same confidence level. At the end it is concluded that a random check with a data treatment assuming a random distribution of Charpy V test results distributed according to a Weibull probability law of the minimum allows providing evidences that with a sufficient confidence level the steel used for the considered structure fulfill the requirements of the new operating conditions.

This paper examines the link that exists between individuals and their avatars in virtual worlds, in terms of identity. The outcomes of the study suggest that virtual worlds and the social and business interactions they offer are tools to build consumer identity. This exploratory research is based on a qualitative study using the chat mode to conduct 34 interviews in the Second Life virtual world. In the transition from the real to the virtual world, the individual must build another identity and operate a transfer, partial or total, from his real identity to the virtual one. The aim of the study is to offer an initial framework in order to understand this transition and its result in terms of identity positioning. Four types of identity positioning are identified: duplication, improvement, transformation and metamorphosis.

International audience; This study examines how a firm can innovate with a brand community via an inductive, longitudinal study of three brand communities. The proposed framework for building an innovative brand community features six mechanisms: animation, openness, structuring, linking, theorization, and integration that support three processes: generation, socializa- tion and adoption of user contributions. An innovative brand community can generate valuable innovations for the firm without reducing its own vitality. It brings together lead, creative, and other types of users to create ideas and new functions, uses, and contents pertaining to innovation. On the one hand, firms that partially open their boundaries by leaving space in the process of innovation for creation and discussion can benefit from the contribution of users without suffering appropriation problems. On the other hand, brand communities should receive toolkits for creation and animation, and encourage the development of both communities and innovation.

A simple reliability-based framework is applied to calibrate a new set of fatigue design guidelines. This new guideline considers two different approaches for the assessment of both loads, stresses and local stress raising effects, and partial safety factors must be given for any combination of these approaches. For the calibration, the lognormal reliability format is adopted because the hereby-derived partial safety factors can be combined arbitrarily. This means that with a few basic partial safety factors, the combination of partial safety factors to be applied together with any combination of calculation approaches can be determined easily. In the present paper both the adopted reliability format, the applied modeling of uncertainties and the selected target safety index are explained. Based on this, a new guideline is calibrated and the derived partial safety factors are presented. Finally, the new guideline is applied through a numerical example in order to show the applicability of the calibrated partial safety factors, and satisfactory results are found.

Bulletin board methodology emerged at the end of the 1990s and is becoming the most frequently used qualitative study technique. This interactive approach groups a community of participants in a private or public online forum for a duration that varies from several days to several months. Discoveries, exchanges of view, personal opinions and group reactions are all part of the power and interest of the internet in this era of social media. This article presents the principles of bulletin board development, and specifics to aid understanding of this tool within social networks and to help organisations adapt to a paradigm shift in marketing in which consumer-respondents are co-creators of meaning and knowledge.

The aim of the paper is to characterize innovation with user communities and to explore managerial implications for creative industries. Based on four case studies, we explore the interrelations between the firm and user communities. The digitalization and virtualization of interactions change the ways in which the boundaries between the firm and its user community are defined. User communities are actively developing new products, new services. Definitions of value differ for firms and users. Users are valuating the possibility to be creative, to transform individual creativity into products while firms are making money with innovation. Finally, innovation with user communities may modify the respective identities of firms and communities.

Cet article explore dans les mondes virtuels le lien qui existe entre les individus et leurs avatars en termes d'identité. Les résultats de cette étude tendent à démontrer que les univers virtuels et les interactions qu'ils offrent d'un point de vue social et marchand sont des outils de construction identitaire. Cette recherche exploratoire s'appuie sur une étude qualitative de 34 entretiens menés en immersion dans le monde virtuel Second Life. Lors de son passage au monde virtuel, l'individu doit construire une identité en opérant un transfert, partiel ou total, de son identité réelle à son identité virtuelle. L'objet de cet article est d'examiner cette transition et son résultat en termes de positionnement identitaire. Quatre types de positionnements identitaires sont identifiés: la duplication, l'amélioration, la transformation et la métamorphose.