Keeping alive inter-organisational innovation through the interplay of organisational identities

Paper in proceeding, 2017

This paper discusses how individuals draw on the strategic interests and motivations of their home organisations in negotiating what activities can be undertaken as part of inter-organisational collaboration for innovation. Through presenting ethnographic snapshots of a case involving fifteen partner organisations, the paper explores how members of a coordinating team make sense of the possibilities and constraints for joint work. As they work together, they continuously re-shape the identities of their home organisations and of the meta-organisation. This challenges previous research assuming the importance of a coherent and stable collective identity for collaborative work. Instead the author suggests that innovation practitioners make space for multiple objectives within joint activities in order to keep alive inter-organisational innovation.