Exploring inter-organizational collaboration for innovation in a regional ecosystem

TY - THES

T1 - Exploring inter-organizational collaboration for innovation in a regional ecosystem

AU - Radziwon, Agnieszka

N1 - Agnieszka Radziwon is a Ph.D. candidate and research associate at the Mads Clausen Institute, University of Southern Denmark. She obtained her Master degree in Engineering from Wrocław University of Technology and M.Sc. in Economics and Business Administration in Business Relationship Management from the University of Southern Denmark. Over the period of her doctoral project she was a visiting researcher at Eindhoven University of Technology, Vienna University of Technology and Chalmers University of Technology and University of Copenhagen. Her main interests center on the design, organization and management of technology. In particular, her research focuses on open innovation, sharing economy as well as inter-organizational collaboration within (regional) ecosystems. Agnieszka has published her work in journals like Industry and Innovation, International Journal of Technology Management and Technological Forecasting and Social Change.

PY - 2017/4/11

Y1 - 2017/4/11

N2 - The past decade has witnessed a shift from a closed to an open innovation model, where firms complement their own resources with external resources and competencies. Communities, networks, ecosystems, alliances, and other coupled forms of open innovation have increased their prevalence and impact on an organization’s development. Nevertheless, many aspects of open innovation are not yet well explored. Relatively few studies address the challenges of open innovation from the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) perspective, especially at the level of business ecosystems. Therefore, this research aims at filling this gap by providing a study immersed in an open innovation context with a particular focus on the ways how SMEs contribute to the development of the ecosystem they are embedded in. A central point of attention of this study is inter-organizational collaboration between SMEs and other stakeholders co-evolving in the ecosystem. The research builds on prior findings on embracing mutual knowledge flows across organizational boundaries, inter-organizational collaboration as well as value creation and value capture mechanisms. The empirical work is based on a qualitative inquiry combined with grounded theory and action research elements. The study was conducted in a Danish regional business ecosystem. This research project was implemented in order to facilitate the improvement of SMEs’ innovation performance through inter-organizational collaboration. The main findings offer insights into the mutual knowledge flows across organizational boundaries, resource recombination in inter-organizational collaboration as well as value creation and capturing processes.This research both contributes to the innovation theory and practice. On the theoretical side, it offers four types of conceptual contributions: 1) extends the complex evolutionary system theory by three complementary ecosystem fostering mechanisms; 2) broadens the current knowledge based view by inter-organizational level dimension; 3) offers a fresh view of resource co-evolution and recombination under ecosystem embeddedness based safety net; and 4) outlines a key insights into the important elements that contribute to the process of value generation and appropriation on an ecosystem, inter-organizational and organizational level. On the practical side, this dissertation helps to understand the drivers of inter-organizational collaboration by offering insights into the influence of key elements such as: Knowledge Transfer among ecosystem members, Resource Recombination with and without financial benefits and Power Balance between large and small collaboration partners.

AB - The past decade has witnessed a shift from a closed to an open innovation model, where firms complement their own resources with external resources and competencies. Communities, networks, ecosystems, alliances, and other coupled forms of open innovation have increased their prevalence and impact on an organization’s development. Nevertheless, many aspects of open innovation are not yet well explored. Relatively few studies address the challenges of open innovation from the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) perspective, especially at the level of business ecosystems. Therefore, this research aims at filling this gap by providing a study immersed in an open innovation context with a particular focus on the ways how SMEs contribute to the development of the ecosystem they are embedded in. A central point of attention of this study is inter-organizational collaboration between SMEs and other stakeholders co-evolving in the ecosystem. The research builds on prior findings on embracing mutual knowledge flows across organizational boundaries, inter-organizational collaboration as well as value creation and value capture mechanisms. The empirical work is based on a qualitative inquiry combined with grounded theory and action research elements. The study was conducted in a Danish regional business ecosystem. This research project was implemented in order to facilitate the improvement of SMEs’ innovation performance through inter-organizational collaboration. The main findings offer insights into the mutual knowledge flows across organizational boundaries, resource recombination in inter-organizational collaboration as well as value creation and capturing processes.This research both contributes to the innovation theory and practice. On the theoretical side, it offers four types of conceptual contributions: 1) extends the complex evolutionary system theory by three complementary ecosystem fostering mechanisms; 2) broadens the current knowledge based view by inter-organizational level dimension; 3) offers a fresh view of resource co-evolution and recombination under ecosystem embeddedness based safety net; and 4) outlines a key insights into the important elements that contribute to the process of value generation and appropriation on an ecosystem, inter-organizational and organizational level. On the practical side, this dissertation helps to understand the drivers of inter-organizational collaboration by offering insights into the influence of key elements such as: Knowledge Transfer among ecosystem members, Resource Recombination with and without financial benefits and Power Balance between large and small collaboration partners.

M3 - Doctoral thesis

SN - 978-87-93496-47-7

BT - Exploring inter-organizational collaboration for innovation in a regional ecosystem

CY - Denmark

ER -