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

Paper i 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.