Dating for innovation : recognizing and creating opportunities in fluid environments through collaborative interorganizational relationships

Sammanfattning: Both practice and theory present good reason to believe that collaborative interorganizational relationships have become particularly important for innovation and new product development in industries characterized by rapid technological change and dynamic competition. Even though collaboration across organizational boundaries represents an important change in the way companies innovate and develop new products (services and processes), it appears as if the process and practical steps of such arrangements are scantly explored. The thesis Dating for Innovation addresses this gap by empirically studying a focal company’s attempts to bring new opportunities into the world through collaborative interorganizational relationships under conditions marked by fluid change. A diverse set of research methods ranging from an insider action research approach to more conventional case study methods were applied to shed light on contingencies that may play a role in influencing the process and practical steps. The result suggests an explorative logic and process, where the partners make use of interorganizational relationships as a means to explore the knowledge necessary for creating, recognizing, and, eventually, developing future opportunities. Not only interest and continued motivation, but also calculated costs and perceived risks, were thus outcomes of the collaboration rather than prescribed beforehand. Furthermore, the empirical findings suggest that corporate entrepreneurs at lower levels in the organization have a more significant influence than previously assumed. From a general point of view, these results imply that parts of the process can be facilitated, but not all initiatives or activities can be directed. Managers are thus challenged to reflect on how to productively deal with interorganizational innovation activities without adapting a classical linear and/or hierarchical monitoring of interorganizational innovation initiatives.