In order to be successful in innovation efforts a firm may find it is essential to collaborate. Collaborative partnerships represent a two-way shared commitment of resources by partners for complimentary aims. Firms that are able to extend reach outside their internal walls and find external innovation partners gain greater success. (De Jong et al., 2013) The organisational culture must also support collaboration; by doing so this fundamentally necessitates an open innovation process. Social innovation can take place in the space that exists between the private industry, government and the NFP sectors when supported by open innovation. (Lawrence et al., 2014; Salim Saji & Ellingstad, 2016) The concept of ‘creating shared value’ stresses the importance of innovation that is socially oriented when businesses are able to create a shared value with social stakeholders. (Porter, & Kramer, 2011) As social innovation is especially associated with cross-sector inter-organisational collaboration, organisation’s should seek out opportunities to create shared value through cross-sector partnerships: seeking out new partners appropriate to the social problem. Partner selection in innovation collaboration requires strategic alignment and orientation among partners; sharing a clear mission, sharing facts about the social issue, identifying the social problem to be solved and contributing dynamics, identifying strengths of each partner and leveraging of core competencies in solving the social problem. (Salim Saji & Ellingstad, 2016) When done well, collaboration can result in the following benefits: sharing costs and risks; building scale and scope; provide access to complementary technology and skills; deal with uncertainty and complexity; allow a watching brief on potential threats/opportunities; assist to develop standards and facilitate learning. When done poorly it can result in high failure rates; diversion of attention of key managers and resources; creation of an over-reliance on partners; and adversely affecting competition. People are always a businesses key asset.
References
De Jong, M., Marston, N., & Roth, E. (2013). The eight essentials of innovation. McKinsey Quarterly, Strategy(2), 36–47. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-eight-essentials-of-innovation
Lawrence, T. B., Dover, G., & Gallagher, B. (2014). Managing Social Innovation. In The Oxford Handbook of Innovation (Issue April, pp. 1–14). https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199694945.013.032
Salim Saji, B., & Ellingstad, P. (2016). Social innovation model for business performance and innovation. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 65(2), 256–274. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-10-2015-0147
Porter, M. & Kramer, M. (2011). Creating shared value. Harvard Business Review [HBR]2, 89(1–2), 62–77.
Dodgson, M. Gann, D. Nelson, P. (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Innovation Management (P. Dodgson, M. Gann, D. Nelson (ed.); 6th Editio). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199694945.013.010
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