Performances in the selling of an innovation platform

Paper in proceeding, 2016

This paper explores how one team demonstrates the benefits of organising as an innovation platform. The paper describes how team-members work together to put on a show for stakeholders, emphasising particular aspects of their joint work to meet the perceived expectations of each audience. These practices of impression management are considered a part of selling the innovation platform to potential partners. The discussion is based on an explorative, ethnographic study following the everyday activities of the team over seven weeks, totalling 270 hours. Additionally, the author analysed documents and online posts, and interviewed central participants after fieldwork had ended. The author finds that team composition, working processes and individual learning were the central aspects emphasised by the team in their interactions with stakeholders. The author calls for further research to explore how practitioners engage in performances of impression management as a part of their practices of organising for collaborative innovation.