Organizing Multi-Cross-Industry Innovation Initiatives: The Case of Connected Living

摘要

Nowadays, companies from various industries realize that their core business lies in converging technological fields. This development is confirmed by the example of interconnected products which are known as "smart" products. Popular instances are smartphones or smart TVs as well as a relatively new branch that is concerned with smart home solutions. As these smart home solutions are typically developed in unique cross-industry innovation networks, which have hardly been explored so far, we derive the following research question: What type of organizational framework supports collaboration in a cross-industry network environment, and what practices are important for collaboration success? Based on this question, we develop an in-depth case study of Connected Living, a highly active German multi-cross-industry innovation network set up as a non-profit organization of more than 50 participating companies. Our paper is structured as follows: first, we describe the organizational model of Connected Living and the development of the network since its foundation in 2008, before showing which key practices are important for collaboration success in this kind of network setting. Our findings highlight the network's heterogeneous composition which involves the integration of existing members' competitors and companies from distant industries, the management's awareness of a workshop fit, the linkage between publicly funded research projects and the emergence of multi-cross-industry Innovation initiatives and the proactive public relations activities as being crucial for collaboration success.