The emergence of FinTechs, InsurTechs and the ever-increasing regulatory pressure have accelerated insurance companies' need to innovate their business models and to find novel sources of value creation and cost-saving. This study provides a deep insight into various internal and external barriers influencing business model innovation in the German insurance industry. Results of interviews conducted with 23 experts working in established insurance firms operating in Germany showed that internal barriers constitute more of a hindrance than external barriers. This dynamic holds especially true for regulations, as the fear of breaching external regulation fosters the development of even stronger internal rules that fundamentally impede business model innovation.

Im Rahmen der marktorientierten Unternehmensführung übernimmt der Kunde zunehmend eine aktive Rolle des Mitentwicklers von Produkten und Dienstleistungen. Hier bestehen bereits Konzepte der interaktiven Wertschöpfung, wie etwa Open Innovation und Mass Customization. Mit JOSEPHS® wird eine Plattform für Kundeninteraktionen vorgestellt. Es handelt sich um ein offenes Innovationslabor in Nürnberg, das sich als Intermediär zwischen Unternehmen und Kunden versteht. Hier werden durch verschiedene Akteure bereits in frühen Phasen des Entwicklungsprozesses Kunden und Nichtkunden einbezogen. Am Unternehmen Mifitto wird das Konzept erläutert und die Vorteile werden dargestellt.

Purpose: Firms increasingly integrate a wide range of actors in the early ideation and concept creation phases of innovation processes leading to the collection of a large number of ideas. This creates the challenge of filtering the most promising ideas from the large number of submissions. The use of external stakeholders into the evaluation and selection of submissions (i.e., open evaluation) might be a viable alternative. This paper provides a stateof-the-art analysis on how such open evaluation systems are designed and structured. Design/methodology/approach: Since open evaluation is a new phenomenon, an exploratory qualitative research approach is adopted. 122 instances of open evaluation in 90 innovation contest cases (selected out of 400 cases) are examined for their design elements. Findings: This research reveals that open evaluation systems are configured in many different ways. In total, 32 design elements and their respective parameters are identified and described along the six socio-technical system components of an open evaluation system. This study allows for a comprehensive understanding of what open evaluation is and what factors need to be taken into consideration when designing an open evaluation system. Practical implication: Scholars and professionals may draw insights on what design choices to make when implementing open evaluation. Originality/value: The comprehensive analysis performed in his study contributes to research on open and user innovation by examining the concept of open evaluation. In particular, it extends knowledge on design elements of open evaluation systems.

Purpose Increasing demographic diversity within societies and workforces causes challenges with regard to the innovation performance of companies. By definition, innovation communities nowadays are composed of members with diverse function background and age diversity. The challenging question is how to manage diverse corporate innovation communities. The purpose of this paper is to find out which factors determine the success of corporate innovation communities in times of demographic shifts. Design/methodology/approach The empirical field to answer the research question are three corporate innovation communities in companies of different industries and size. Multiple case study methodology is applied to gather and analyse the data. Findings The study presents an empirically derived framework to structure success factors of diverse corporate innovation communities chronologically in the three phases of preparation, execution and finalization of a community work process. The success factors are described in detail and finally a time sequential guideline for those who are responsible for community management in demographic change is provided. Research limitations/implications It is contributed to the literature on innovation communities and it is shown that innovation communities are not only an instrument to solve innovation tasks but are also a promising means to tackle other challenges of recent demographic changes. As limitation must be considered, that the analysed innovation communities only received corporate support for a short period of time and the supporting organizations operate in manufacturing industries in Germany only. Practical implications The paper highlights that managers need to be aware that diversity in corporate innovation communities per se does not lead to success. Furthermore, a guideline of success factors for managers of diverse corporate innovation communities is presented which highlights important aspects that managers need to consider during the community work process. Social implications Due to demographic shifts in Germany and other European countries, societies in general and workforces in particular have modified. Most pervasive shifts take place with regard to age structures and diversity. Implications how manager could handle diversity successfully are therefore of high relevance for societies. Originality/value This study provides a theoretical understanding of the implications of organizational and age diversity on corporate innovation community management. Extant authors have already focussed on success factors in innovation communities and diverse settings isolated, but have not merged these issues.