Stakeholder engagement: Applying dechnology in a technology-oriented organization

Abstract

Technology revolution and the subsequent innovation can bring about a multitude of benefits for the society. However, innovation derived from a single technology push is no longer sufficient to meet the needs of the current market. While past studies have suggested that an ideal environment for innovation involves the engagement of multiple stakeholders, in practice, this ideal has remained a major challenge for many technology-oriented organizations. In 2010, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) launched a project called Dechnology, where service design and design thinking were incorporated into the R&D process. The project developed the Dechnology innovation model, and successfully engaged stakeholders in the innovative process, which helped the collaboration between ITRI and corporations. This study looked at three cases from the Dechnology project and investigated the mechanisms applied in the Dechnology innovation model. This study further illustrated that the Dechnology project utilized three main mechanisms, which were (1) to apply the end-user voice properly, (2) to build a multidisciplinary facilitation team, and (3) to establish visualized co-creation environments.