Participatory Innovation: Lessons from breeding cooperatives

Throughout the last decades, breeding in the plant sector, husbandry and aquaculture have come under the ownership control of multinational, investor-owned firms. Breeding in these sectors is risky business, but can be extremely profitable for the involved parties. Against high odds, a few breeding cooperatives have successfully increased their competitiveness in breeding by means of collectively organized efforts, here referred to as “Participatory Innovation”. Illustrated by data from four breeding cooperatives, we explore conditions for success at intra- and inter-organizational levels. “Participatory Innovation” is a strategy to leverage individual members as co-innovators and make them benefit from a multiplier-effect. We advance the idea that “Participatory Innovation” is a distinct conceptual mode of innovation, differing from the more well-known metatheories “Vertically Integrated Innovation”, “Open Innovation” and “User Innovation”.