This paper is based on a living lab project, which is an open, user-centric, innovation approach,where several actors from industry, user groups and academia are involved. The research question is:how can interaction dynamics be understood in a living lab innovation process? We applied an action-oriented research approach, where the empirical results are from The Find Project (TFP), which aim is to customize an ICT product based on the needs of a user group. The findings are analyzed from a community of practice perspective where three different communities, i) researchers from Halmstad Living Lab (HLL), ii) ICT developers (ICTD) and iii) next of kin of demented elderly persons (NOKD), represented the unit of analysis. We identified situations and activities that played a vital role for the innovation process in terms of boundary interaction dynamics. The contribution of our research to innovation theory is a combination and further exploration of the boundary spanning and communities of practice theories. We have developed a conceptual model describing the dynamics in boundary interactions of an ICT innovation process with regard to boundary objects-inuse and brokering. The conceptual model highlights two different levels of brokering: i) inner-level brokering and ii) outer-level brokering.

In this article, Engaged Scholarship is disentangled from a co-creation and boundary practice perspective. The focus is on the attached inside researcher in collaborative basic research and action research project. Within the information systems discipline the intersection between collaborative basic research and action research is not that well explored. An extra interest has been on the transformation of descriptions to proposed actions that takes place in this intersection. From our empirical findings of an Engaged Scholarship project we have identified four lessons learned that could be used as considerations and proposed actions for the attached inside researcher. The lessons learned are derived from four theoretical themes: co-creation,dialogue, boundary practice and boundary objects. The empirical data presented in the article is from a project called Free2Ride, which was a co-creation project between researchers, ICT-developers and members from two equestrian clubs.

Research has shown that collaboration and co-creation among different groups of stakeholders add complexity and challenges to the innovation process. In this paper a study of co-creation in a multi-stakeholder innovation process is presented. The co-creation is explored and described from a boundary practice perspective. The empirical data presented in the study is based on a user-centric innovation project, Free2Ride, where researchers, developers and members of two equestrian clubs co-created a piece of ICT safety equipment consisting of a transmitter (on the horse) and a receiver (application on a smartphone) to be used by equestrian club members during their everyday riding activities. Three episodes were extracted from the empirical data and presented in the paper. From these episodes the researchers have identified four characteristics of the spanning of boundaries in co-creation from a boundary practice perspective. One of the contributions in the papers is a description of boundary practice-spanning. The research approach adopted in the study is the action case approach.