Barriers

In the following paragraphs we will identify and analyze the three most pressing barriers: pull, trust, and governance. These barriers have been identified through our interviews and continuously ongoing conversations with the relevant stakeholders inside LEO. This will be followed by proposed solutions as to how LEO can overcome them in order to successfully seize the opportunities they have sensed.

Pull Barrier

”How can we define the value that is in it for others?” - Thorsten, Interview 3 The first barrier LEO is facing entails recruiting participants to the platform. As Thorsten state in interview 3 the issue is to define the value potential for others than LEO themselves, to which Niclas agrees: “The incentive has to be crystal clear: ‘Right here I can do work that yield more value for me than what I normally do’. That message has to be crystal clear otherwise it will not be happening, which is going to be difficult to figure out”. Unfortunately, the barrier becomes even more complex to deal with as Niclas further state that most people do not understand the concept of OI or let alone what it is, and if they do, they do not necessarily share the same view on OI as LEO (Interview 1; Interview 4). From an analytical standpoint, this becomes a very interesting aspect, as LEO themselves know the difficulty of transitioning to a more open structure, as explained by Jakob: “the mental transition has been the toughest internally. The aspect of giving something away for free has been very overwhelming for people” (Interview 3).

Therefore, LEO knows how it is to be in their shoes and in cohesion the necessity of properly educating external partners (Interview 1).

In conclusion, this becomes a two-sided barrier for LEO to overcome. First, LEO must educate potential participants as to what the concept of OI is and define why it might be beneficial for them to partake. Secondly, they must showcase that value and develop a strategy for attracting potential users. The necessity of overcoming this barrier cannot be emphasized enough, as a platform providing a vague or incoherent incentive to participate is doomed from the beginning.

Trust Barrier

”In order to be able to share with others, there should be no mistrust.”

- Niclas, Interview 4

The second barrier concerns establishing and maintaining trust. Trust is an essential part of every exchange and thus a crucial barrier for LEO to overcome. Remove trust and the exchange between participants will most certainly not go through. Enhance it and the number of exchanges is likely to increase. In order for an exchange to occur, a certain level of common understanding must therefore be achieved between both participants. This is important when dealing with sensitive aspects of business, such as data and IP rights. A common aspect leading to mistrust is the occurrence of information asymmetries, in which one participant possess relevant knowledge concerning the exchange that the other participant does not, thus enabling the former to utilize the knowledge for personal advantage. Ensuring that both participants is at the same level of understanding is thus one of the first steps in achieving trust between two parties (Interview 4).

Furthermore, trust is a product of several factors and as for the aforementioned pull barrier, trust also relies on people's individual mindsets: “The largest is the mental barrier. You have to use a lot of energy on getting people on board, because we come from this very patient protected reality of having to be careful of sharing information” (Interview 3). The necessity of changing people's mindsets is again emphasized as a barrier in order to establish trust between two parties. This becomes a very important aspect, as it is one thing to decide whether or not you trust another participant found through the OI platform, but before even getting to that point you need to decide whether or not you trust the concept of OI as a whole, i.e. opening up your organization and engaging in the platform.

During the early stages of the platform, LEO faced a barrier of establishing trust and as a consequence they focused on simplifying the contractual agreements. Being able to get contracts in place and remove the contractual barriers has been an ongoing internal challenge for LEO

(Interview 1). Niclas further elaborates on why contracts are necessary for there to be trust: “Had we had trust, then we would not need contracts. Contracts enable partners to trust us. Trust that we do not steal their ideas. It is about respect and that you can trust us” (Interview 4). The context concerns the participants of the platform and their ability to trust LEO as an organization.

Therefore, in this situation trust can take two forms. One form is the aforementioned trust between LEO and participants of the platform, while the other is trust between two participants of the platform external to LEO. The barriers to be overcome differ depending on which type of trust relationship it pertains to:

Trust between LEO and partners

Traditionally pharma organizations have not been viewed as a trustworthy, because people often believe they are looking to steal their ideas (Interview 4). From an external perspective this is highly understandable, as we have previously discovered that the pharma industry is known for keeping its cards close and thus a potential participant might think twice about opening up in such a secretive and competitive industry. Thorsten support this argument and acknowledges the barrier of convincing people that LEO is not trying to steal their ideas, as he explains that some participants might find it suspicious and think: ‘why is a pharma organization like LEO running the community and platform?’ (Interview 3). Emphasizing our analytical perspective, Niclas believe the focus should rather be put on shifting from a relationship involving mistrust to a more neutral relationship, rather than attempting to make a direct leap from mistrust to a fully trusting relationship (interview 4).

Trust between two participants

As the platform manager, LEO need to enhance trust between participants even when the exchange does not include themselves, as enhanced mutual trust between every participant will enhance positive network effect. However, while acknowledging the necessity for LEO to support the creation of trust between other participants, this is good example of LEO knowing what they want, but not how to get it: “Ensure to create trust between two partners, excluding LEO. I do not know.. I actually do not know how to achieve it, but I expect a fairly long process is needed in order to build common understanding” (Interview 4). Hence, establishing a common understanding between participants of various relations is yet another obstacle to overcome.

“If you do not have quality then you cannot offer science.” - Niclas, Interview 4 The last barrier concerns governing the quality of the content and the admittance of participants to the platform. One could argue that the more participants engaging in the platform the better, as this would enhance the positive network effects. However, a barrier arises when certain qualitative standards need to be met and therefore 'the more the merrier' simply does not hold true.

This constitutes the first sub-barrier for LEO to overcome in relation to Governance. LEO intends to offer and retrieve science and, as Niclas states, an important part of science is quality (Interview 4). If everyone and everything is allowed on the platform a flood of poor or irrelevant content might quickly appear. This is a crucially important barrier to overcome because if not done successfully, the difficulty of overcoming the two aforementioned barriers will also increase. This is due to people's trust towards and incentive to use the platform diminishing if it is swamped by poor quality content. Therefore, the content needs to be “[...] functional, professional, [and] trustworthy” (Interview 4).

Another sub-barrier to good governance is that of openness; who should be allowed on the platform and how many. LEO need to identify and target specific segments of actors for participation in the community, which we will the following section of Overcoming Barriers.

However, a sub-barrier arises due to the fact that even though participant fit a certain segment, it does not mean their intentions are positive towards the community. Thus, this sub-barrier entails spotting “the rotten egg of the bunch”, e.g. a small biotech whose intentions are not to open up and engage in value sharing, but only seek to obstruct workflow of its participating competitors, thereby diminishing the quality of the platform.

Not only is the level of participation and engagement of the platform at stake if quality is diminished, so is LEO’s brand. With the organization positioning itself as a quality manufacturer, creating and managing a platform that facilitates a community will reflect back on their brand.

Therefore, the platform and its content need to be of a certain quality in order for it to live up to LEO’s standards (Interview 4). The necessity of overcoming this last overarching barrier of governance is thus emphasized through each of these coherent aspects in terms of quality of content, participatory degree of openness, as well as in relation to the LEO brand.

Having defined the barriers most crucial for LEO to succeed, we will now propose how LEO can overcome these barriers by utilizing certain organizational process and strategies, in order to seize the opportunities they have sensed.