Objective

Methods

Participation

Benefits

Email

Acknowledgements
  

Collaborative Innovation Project

Objective

The goal of this project is to understand what makes some collaborative ventures successful with innovation while others are not.

Methods

We employ comparative case methods to construct rich case histories on a variety of technology innovations and ventures through interviews from research labs, commercial firms, financiers, and industry publications covering topics such as industry structures, dynamics, challenges, and key players. The project is currently focusing on firms in the computing and communications industry which are or were recently involved in at least one cross-firm collaboration.

Participation

Participation involves a 60-90 minute interview with 5-10 collaboration participants at the executive, manager and engineer levels within each firm. Interviews will be conducted by Professor Davis and other members of the project team. Interviews are conducted in person whenever possible or over the phone. To be respectful of contributors' time and knowledge, researchers may ask to take notes and follow up as appropriate, and will keep important details confidential.

Benefits

Participants contribute to the development of knowledge about this important topic, and ultimately receive access to the project's findings, such as highlights, best practices, and innovation benchmarks.

Email

Contact collaborativeinnovation at mit dot edu to participate.

Acknowledgements

This reseach was initiated under the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) within the Management Science and Engineering (MS&E) Department of Stanford's School of Engineering.

This project was guided by Professor Kathleen Eisenhardt, co-author of "Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos" (Harvard Business School Press) with Google's Shona Brown and by Professor Tom Byers, author of the textbook "Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise" (McGraw-Hill, 2005).

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