Mattia Bianchi

My main research interests include:

• open innovation, the practice of exchanging novel ideas, inventions and technological knowledge across organizations, including large corporations, nascent start-ups, universities and research institutes. My scholarly work has focused particularly on R&D collaborations and on technology licensing.
• Innovation syndromes and flexible innovation models. I am particularly interested in how organizations can overcome the recurring syndromes that cause many innovation projects and new ventures to fail, e.g., scope creep (the project grows in size in an uncontrolled way, as it loses a clear direction), firefighting (developers fixing unexpected problems and working flat-out as deadlines approach), overdesign (loading a new product with features that customers don’t need), jumping to solutions (taking the problem for granted and eventually producing brilliant answers but to the wrong questions). These pathologies produce what could be defined as “overdosed management”, which is clearly irrational but also very hard to escape in conditions of high complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty that characterize corporate innovation initiatives. My research investigates whether flexible, experimentation-based frameworks for innovation management, such as agile development, lean R&D and design thinking, help address these syndromes. Despite originating from distinct contexts (e.g., software development, system engineering, product design) and employing different tools, these frameworks share similar underlying principles: user centeredness, rapid prototyping and early testing, iterative process design, front-loaded problem solving, minimal up-front planning, adaptation of the new concept under development to changing requirements until late in the innovation process. 
• transformative innovations in the management of natural resources, particularly forests. I investigate whether and how emerging innovations are reshaping the forest sector. Innovations, manifested as new products, services, business models, or technologies, have the potential to drive broad, paradigmatic shifts within industries. Classic illustrations of such industry-transforming innovations include the containerization in shipping, smartphones in mobile communication, peer-to-peer platforms like Airbnb in hospitality, and SpaceX's reusable rockets in space exploration. In the Nordic countries of Europe, there is a widespread belief that the current, production-centric forest sector needs systemic changes to properly address severe environmental problems like climate change and biodiversity preservation. The strategy of increasing wood extraction, as championed by bioeconomy proponents, to substitute fossil-based, carbon-intensive materials, may result in higher GHG emissions and biodiversity loss. These dilemmas have sparked polarized, politically charged discourses among forest stakeholders, most prominently in Sweden. Rooted at the heart of these discourses are the disparate cognitive frames of these stakeholders, leading to divergent beliefs on the fundamental value and meaning of forests to humanity. The research hinges on the concept of 'reframing'—a shift from established cognitive frames to novel ones, potentially gaining prominence and eliciting consensus among stakeholders—as the foundation for transformative innovations.