Learning and innovation in Territorial Living Lab

Purpose - Living Labs (LL) are recently growing in importance as being open innovation environments transferring research and development out of laboratories into real-life contexts; they appear appropriate to get a better understanding in what triggers innovation. A LL is a network of real people with rich experiences; it is a new way to deal with community-driven innovation. The concept of Territorial LL (TLL) emphasises the focus on real people networks by looking at their real institutional and spatial contexts. The focus is on the innovation networking mechanism arising when communities are collectively developing solutions for common problems having a specific contextual nature. The paper analyses the open innovation mechanisms taking places in TLL environments and explores the specific nature of these open innovation contexts. Design/methodology/approach - In the first part the paper analyses the most recent advancements in LL and open innovation literature clarifying the specific features of TLL. In the second part the paper describes the story of the Torre Guaceto LL, a territorial LL activated in the context of a Natural Reserve in Southern Italy. The Torre Guaceto case is described and analysed by applying the SECI model. This is a prescriptive model to for knowledge creating processes (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995); in our paper it is used as an analytic framework in order to appreciate the dynamic nature of knowledge creation and its relation with the real innovation contexts. The use of the SECI model is also instrumental to visualize the dynamics of the contexts enabling the knowledge production. Originality/value - The originality of the paper is twofold: 1) the paper envisages an analytic role of the SECI model; this model is widely discussed in the knowledge management and innovation literature but never referred to as having an analytic value; 2) Living Labs represent the most promising approach in open innovation especially when it is analysed in terms of community-driven innovation mechanisms; they are not yet widely discussed in literature although showing incredible potentials for innovation in firms, organizations and society; the proposed paper represents a valuable contribution in this direction. Practical implications - The practical implication of the proposed paper is twofold: 1) the use of the SECI model as an analytic framework gives a significant operational input to different applications of the model as also able to reveal organizational dynamics from the knowledge creation point of view; 2) in coherence with the SECI literature the paper supplies an operational insight on innovation contexts starting from the "Ba" concept for contexts of knowledge creation.