Play-based intrapreneurship: Challenging innovation processes and underlying cultural understanding

Fresh and new perspectives from outsiders can often challenge existing practices and routines, and setting up the conditions for such intentional inquiry is highlighted as one of the most important drivers of innovation as well as a driving force for a deliberate disruption of practices. In today's market, well-established companies are currently struggling to secure profits, mainly due to the pressure from new communication technology-based business models and competitors coming in from unforeseen areas. This study uses play and game-based innovation methods to investigate how students can play a role as outside-in facilitators to foster novel perspectives on existing practices and current innovation processes. Through a number of student-industry collaboration cases, this study contributes a new course approach on how to arrange student-industry collaborations in which students apply play and game-based methods as a way for companies to continue challenging assumptions and elicit surprise framings in innovation processes.