A Theoretical Framework of Algorithmic Orchestration of Open Innovation on Digital Platforms

Advances in digital infrastructure and increased accessibility to a broader swath of society has promoted open innovation on digital platforms at the largest scale in our history. While the increased participation of society in helping to solve a broad range of problems is something to be celebrated, we should also recognize that this scaling-up has introduced several challenges that require us as a discipline to revisit how we envision the orchestration of open innovation. These challenges pertain to the social mechanisms that are traditionally leveraged to orchestrate open innovation and inherent human biases that can be counterproductive to bringing problems and ideal solutions together. In this research, we advance a theoretical framework that gives primacy to the role of algorithms in orchestrating open innovation on digital platforms at large scale. Owing to their superiority in processing vast amounts of data and recognizing patterns at large scale, we see algorithms as playing an important complementary role alongside human participants in the open innovation process. We conclude by outlining an initial research agenda.