Flexible value creation: Conceptual prerequisites and empirical explorations in open workshops

New micro-scale forms of working, ranging between craftsmanship, creative invention and digitalized production, do not only promise to contribute to open innovation (Smith et al., 2017). Open Workshops, FabLabs, Reality Labs, and Tech Shops also provide new modes of value creation (Petschow, 2016). As product development, services and field-specific knowledge become ever more contextualized and contingent, there emerge flexible configurations of value creation (Stabell and Fjeldstad, 1998). Following this line of thinking, we conceptualize the role of Open Workshops in value creation processes. Concerning shifts and fluctuations of the agents involved, may they be professionals, knowledgeable amateurs or everyday practitioners, we know little about the role of space and place for value formation in informal peer networks. We are aiming at shedding light on self-established work structures that are typically experimental and in perpetual transition. Our results demonstrate that value creation is generated on rather unforeseen occasions, based on open search for sufficient work-life balances. Especially digital technologies and their flexible combination with work within self-determined networks and organizations contribute to the emergence of such occasions. The empirical case of Open Workshops illustrates in which ways context-dependent routines of trial & error, latency and flexible processes effect changes in field-specific configuration of value creation.