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Abstract: Additive manufacturing (AM) is receiving increasing attention in the manufacturing industry as a collection of novel advanced production technologies, product innovations and innovative supply chains and processes. Companies implementing AM are active in innovation, but successful innovation requires support from other companies in the supply chain and from stakeholders outside of the supply chain. This exploratory study seeks to better understand the mechanism behind stakeholders' involvement in AM innovation activities. The focus is on how stakeholders' involvement enhances the success, sustainability and responsibility of AM innovations. The findings reveal who the stakeholders are and how they influence the innovation processes of companies utilising AM in their manufacturing processes. The study contributes to the field of innovation management in the context of AM by detailing the network complexity in AM innovations and guiding AM companies towards the stakeholders who can improve the success, sustainability and responsibility of AM innovations.
Keywords: additive manufacturing; stakeholder involvement; innovation; sustainable innovation, responsible innovation.
1 Introduction
Additive manufacturing (AM) is a relatively novel manufacturing approach that implies changes in production technologies, the use of digital product designs and a process of joining and adding material, usually layer by layer (ASTM, 2012), to produce innovative goods. The diffusion of AM technologies in the manufacturing industry will require innovations in the business models, supply chains and products and services of the companies involved (Martinsuo and Luomaranta, 2018; Luomaranta and Martinsuo, 2020). There is a growing need for more sustainable and responsible innovations, and AM can become one of the solutions for more sustainable manufacturing (Ford and Despeisse, 2016; Beltagui et al., 2020).
Innovation, in its classical sense, means the introduction of a new product, process or business model for a commercial purpose (Schumpeter, 1934). Creating and introducing new offerings requires a systematic innovation process (Drucker, 1985), and, besides companies operating in the direct AM supply chain, various stakeholders with different interests and demands influence AM innovations. These stakeholders tend to be important organisations that have the power to influence the innovation process to enhance the sustainability and responsibility of AM innovations (Berger et al., 2004; Pagell and Shevchenko, 2014). This study concentrates on innovations in AM, including both the manufacturing technologies and the new goods being manufactured, and on the stakeholders'...