Co-creating innovation

The rise of a consistent number of new cultural institutions in the last two decades, coupled by the arrival of new form of entertainment and other leisure spaces, have put museums in a very competitive environment. For museums to stand out among this crowd has become increasingly challenging. In addition, museums have to face other important issues such as the reduction of governmental funds, the continuous change in people’s tastes and the development of new technologies. In consequence of this, and in order to keep accomplishing their role of culture bearers and education providers, museums have understood the need to take on a more innovative approach. However, due to their non-profit nature, being innovative could be very risky. That is why, it is necessary for them to establish strategic partnerships with external partners. The creation of such partnerships seems to be the solution for museums to accomplish their social role and to face the current challenges proposed by the market. Together with their partners, museums will be able to co-create innovative educational products that will reach and educate the desired target audience. Although existing literature has already studied the formation of cross-sector partnerships, this does not apply to alliances regarding museums and business. In addition, there is an evident gap in literature with regard to innovation processes when these are brought about by organizations together. Hence, by carrying out a qualitative research based on fourteen semi-structured expert interviews, this paper tries to answer the question on how museums can co-create innovative educational products with external partners. The results derived from the interviews show that the bases to build a strategic alliance between museum and businesses are shared goals and values and that a fundamental element to maintain it is communication. Other factors such as mutual benefits and a balanced collaboration were also considered very important. Noteworthy, the management of informal relations was considered as the most important element when establishing and, particularly, maintaining a successful partnership. In addition, what characterized the innovation process carried out by the partners was an open innovation attitude and a design thinking approach. By adopting the first, museums and partners are able to reach out and exchange resources as well as to establish unexpected and less common alliances. By applying the second, namely by listening to the target audience’s real needs and desires, experts affirmed it is possible to create successful and outstanding innovative educational products.