View article

This article examines the problem of rejuvenating collaboration for innovation among cideries (cider producers) and the regional tourism association as the historical key stakeholders of the Cider Route of the Montérégie region in Quebec, Canada. The article reports on the initial steps of an action design research approach to support the stakeholders of the Cider Route in designing an innovative solution in response to numerous challenges they face, including a lack of new initiatives and steeply declining membership among cideries. The first step of the action design research was to define the problem: to renew the collaborative process among the Cider Route stakeholders by redefining the vision, mission, and strategy leading to an artifact proposal that could take the form of a mobile application. Thus, the notion of a boundary object is employed–in relation to the process of designing an information technology artifact in the form of a mobile application for the Cider Route–as a way to understand the need to collaborate to innovate in this context. The article also reports on the ongoing second step of the action design research process, which consists of supporting the collaborative process using group concept mapping. The group concept mapping method was suggested to guide and sustain the collaborative process over time because it is a participatory, bottom-up, mixed-methods approach to evaluation and planning. The group concept mapping, applied within the action design research approach, could be helpful in two ways: first, to define the rejuvenated vision, mission, and strategy for the Cider Route; second, to define the specific …