The Non-Closure of Open Labs – Understanding Critical Issues of Resource Integration

Research has lately investigated many creative or innovative work environments outside traditional organizations, such as Fab Labs, Maker Spaces, Tech Centres, Living Labs, or Real-World Labs. As a general term to capture the diversity of such places, researchers have suggested “Open Labs”. It is not unusual for management research that the conceptual foundations of the term have remained weak. The aim of this paper is to advance theory in such a way that openness in the term “Open Lab” can be better understood.

In line with previous publications, the paper draws a connection between Open Labs and Open Science, which allows a distinction between openness regarding (1) the accessibility of space or technology for observers, (2) the involvement of stakeholders in knowledge flows, (3) productive work in research and design, or (4) decision-making in the course of an innovation project or broader problem-solving activity. All these accounts of openness have in common that they speak of an integration of people in domains where they have so far not been present. Openness is associated with an enablement or an expansion of activities, which fits well to general narratives of resource exploitation driving economic development. While this is suitable for promotional purposes, it obscures or obstructs the view on the structural changes resulting from the engagement in Open Labs.

As an alternative, this paper suggests focussing on the inherent negation in “openness”. Similar to novelty, openness carries with it the idea of an absence of its opposite. Something is open if a closure is missing, but in speaking of openness, this closure is already imagined as a possibility. By rephrasing cases (1)-(4) regarding the respective closure that is overcome, attention is drawn to critical issues in the extant discourse on Open Labs, such as colonialist tendencies, disrespecting diversity in attributions of meaning.