COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH ACROSS BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES: ACTION RESEARCH INSIGHTS FROM THE CO-IMPROVE

Abstract

Increasingly, competition is moving from inter-company rivalry to that between supply chains and networks. In the field of manufacturing, such collaboration between companies may develop into an Extended Manufacturing Enterprise (EME), a chain or network comprising all the relevant functions of the partners. EME competitiveness depends on how effective the partner companies are as innovative and knowledge creative players within dynamic, complex integrated networks. The CO-IMPROVE project explores this premise, focusing in particular, on the learning required to enhance collaborative improvement of the performance of EMEs and among researchers. The CO-IMPROVE project was undertaken in Europe through a collaborative research approach where the researchers were both managing the project and studying it at the same time. The company networks were comprised of the managers from the system integrators and their suppliers, while the researcher network was comprised of academic researchers and the system integrator managers working in outsider-insider researcher teams. This chapter identifies emergent challenges in collaboration in both settings and explores implications for such collaboration.

Citation

Coghlan, D. and Coughlan, P. (2005), "COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH ACROSS BORDERS AND BOUNDARIES: ACTION RESEARCH INSIGHTS FROM THE CO-IMPROVE", Research in Organizational Change and Development (Research in Organizational Change and Development, Vol. 15), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 275-295. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0897-3016(04)15008-8