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Collaboration with other firms and customers: innovation’s secret weapon

Bettina von Stamm (Bettina von Stamm (bvstamm@london.edu) runs the Innovation Exchange (http://iexchange.london.edu), a networking initiative based at the London Business School. She has written two books during her five years managing the program – The Innovation Wave (2002) and Managing Innovation Design & Creativity (2003) both published by John Wiley & Sons. Another product of her research is the Innovation Wave, a management tool for the facilitated assessment and development of innovation capability in organizations (www.innovationwave.com).)

Strategy & Leadership

ISSN: 1087-8572

Article publication date: 1 June 2004

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Abstract

Innovation is at the top of many CEO’s agendas. To increase the odds of success, leaders need to understand why they should collaborate with outsiders and how to do it effectively. There are two major benefits of engaging “outsiders”: they challenge company‐internal assumptions, and they bring a new body of knowledge to the party. The theory that external collaboration is linked to radical innovation is supported by recent research findings cited in the article. Innovation most often happens when some previously unconnected bodies of knowledge converge. So for companies that want to stretch the business boundaries and innovate around markets and business models, external collaboration with other firms and customers is critical. The author lays out practices that leaders can use to make collaboration work and pitfalls to avoid.

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Citation

von Stamm, B. (2004), "Collaboration with other firms and customers: innovation’s secret weapon", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 32 No. 3, pp. 16-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/10878510410535727

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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