Developing a usage network : combining business and non business resources to implement innovation

This paper explores the roles of actors in combining resources to develop an innovation network supporting the actual use of Automated External Defibrillators –AEDs- by end citizens in France. While there is growing attention devoted to innovation networks and recognition of the importance of adopting a users' perspective to analyze innovation ventures, the role of actors in the development of resource combinations as complex solutions has been acknowledged as requiring more empirical research. This paper contributes to better understanding how technical innovations can be embedded in a using setting through interaction and development of new resource combinations in networks with a focus on the implementation stage of innovation. The paper sheds the light on new perspectives related to the configuration of innovation networks in terms of structure, coordination mechanisms and resource constellations. It suggests enlarging the perspective to a usage point of view to refer to the actual practices of appropriation (or lack of appropriation) of the innovation and to highlight the role of other value partners in this process (non users). It introduces the concept of "Usage Network" to reflect a larger perspective than the concept of users' network. Firstly, beyond users, the Usage Network integrates a plurality of actors such as public institutions, sponsors, associations and opinion leaders coming from different business and non business arenas (public, private, individuals/professionals, experts/lay citizens…) having idiosyncratic resources enabling them to relate and interact with users. Secondly, the paper shows how the transformation of the original innovative product and its combination with the resources from those various actors take form into additional solutions, enriching it and facilitating its diffusion and adoption. The paper also provides an original insight on the coordination mechanisms of such Usage Network carried out by boundary actors which are able to create links between the AED supplier and their own network. These boundary actors coordinate the activities of its various members in their effort at combining their resources with those of the supplier: they act as "lead-value creating partners" for the supplier. The paper also highlights the variety of resource combinations required to develop the final solution both within type and across types and confirms the richness of mixed combinations in terms of value creation. This richness also comes from the plurality of the actors holding them.