Making nothing or something: corporate Fab Labs seen through their objects as they cross organizational boundaries

• Main Authors: Fuller, Matthew, David, Albert
• Other Authors: Dauphine Recherches en Management (DRM), Université Paris Dauphine-PSL, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: Organisational boundaries; corporate Fab Labs; open innovation; JEL: O - Economic Development; Innovation; Technological Change; and Growth/O.O3 - Innovation • Research and Development • Technological Change • Intellectual Property Rights/O.O3.O31 - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; JEL: M - Business Administration and Business Economics • Marketing • Accounting • Personnel Economics/M.M5 - Personnel Economics/M.M5.M54 - Labor Management; JEL: M - Business Administration and Business Economics • Marketing • Accounting • Personnel Economics/M.M1 - Business Administration/M.M1.M12 - Personnel Management • Executives; Executive Compensation; [SHS.GESTION]Humanities and Social Sciences/Business administration; Iceland
• Online Access: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01629696; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01629696/document; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01629696/file/53542.pdf

As large firms pursue their quest to support NPD and fuzzy front-end activities within their organizations, some have recently opted to create “corporate Fab Labs”. These spaces, which regroup an innovation-oriented community and provide any employee with a physical setting and open access to digital fabrication tools are also the birthplace of objects. A lingering and recurring question among practitioners and decision makers is: what do these objects represent? In terms of innovation, are they something, or nothing?This paper is an initial response to these reactions and develops a theoretical and empirical study of objects made in corporate Fab Labs. Building upon empirical data collected from a series of photos, we contribute a rudimentary tool for identifying the maturity of corporate Fab Labs as their objects cross three organizational knowledge boundaries: syntax, semantic, and pragmatic.