Main actors in the innovation process (Collaborators)

Innovation rarely results from the activities of single organizations and more commonly occurs when two or more organizations collaborate. The benefits of using collaboration to contribute to innovation outweigh the costs of sharing the returns to that innovation. Collaborations take the form of joint ventures and various types of partnerships, alliances, and contracts that involve joint commitments to mutually agreed aims. They can be with customers and suppliers, organizations in other industries, and even with competitors. Organizations collaborate to reduce the costs of developing innovation, access different knowledge sets and skills to the ones they possess, and use it as an opportunity to learn from partners about new technologies, organizational practices, and strategies. In uncertain and evolving circumstances, innovating collaboratively provides a greater chance of success than going it alone. ICTs and other technologies, have made collaboration cheaper and easier. Governments around the world have actively promoted collaboration as a source of innovation. Different types of collaboration work better in different situations. • When the objectives of collaboration are clear, or the focus is on quickly reducing costs, it works better when organizations are similar. The opportunities for misunderstandings and miscommunication are fewer. • When objectives are emergent, and the objective is exploration and learning, collaboration benefits from dissimilar organizations working together. More is learned from variety than uniformity. • Larger numbers of partners increase the scale of effort; fewer partners improve speed. Collaboration can be difficult to manage. Partners may have different priorities and organizational cultures. There are many opportunities for misunderstanding.