research, education, and consulting about
Innovation through collaboration
Innovation helps organizations to stay afloat when others cannot, and is the way for some organizations to excel in their markets or in exploiting opportunities in new markets. What is more, innovation is essential to face grand challenges of society. Yet innovation is complex, rife with uncertainty and risk, and often requires other parties to generate complementary innovation. Hence, going solo in innovation seems to be less interesting than organizing for innovation together with specialized partners, as these partners may help firms to minimize complexity, uncertainty and risk, and may generate complementary innovation.
This is what Ward Ooms explains in the introduction to his doctoral thesis. However, he then goes on to argue that although collaboration may take away some of the typical barriers to innovation, it poses yet new challenges to the firms and organizations involved. Ward devotes his research efforts to understanding how firms, other organizations, and individuals within them can work together effectively to attain innovation outcomes faster, and without obstructions.
Keywords: collaboration · open innovation · regional innovation · clustering · proximity · power