Performing hackathons as a way of positioning boundary organizations

What is it about?

Hackathons are events, which typically last a few hours and in which people meet to engage in collaborative designing, developing and making activities (for example, a group of people may meet for a 24-hour session to develop an application for mobile phones). This paper analyzes two hackathons organized by a Swedish academic laboratory to involve external people and companies in innovation-oriented activities.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

Generally, hackathons are praised for their spontaneous collaborative dynamics. This article shows how these collaborative dynamics can be highly affected by the different ways in which hackathons can be organized, structured and communicated.