Playful Collaboration (or Not): Using a Game to Grasp the Social Dynamics of Open Innovation in Innovation and Business Education

Abstract

This article explores how playing games can be used to teach intangible social interaction across boundaries, in particular within open collaborative innovation. We present an exploratory case study of how students learned from playing a board game in a graduate course of the international and interdisciplinary Innovation and Business master program in Denmark. We identify several important themes related to the process of learning through playing and the social dynamics of open collaborative innovation, while we also highlight possible caveats of “playing” and practicing open innovation. Our findings imply several opportunities and challenges within education and beyond.

Keywords: co-creation, co-opetition, games, learning, play, social capital