Call for Papers
Track: 06_07 Knowledge, Learning, and Innovation
Knowledge, Learning, and Innovation Within and Between Sectors
Searching to facilitate creative processes, organisations recognise that the source of new ideas and information lies in the interaction between different functional departments, as well as in the cooperation with external actors. That is why increasingly, organisations from multiple sectors (i.e., government, business and civil society) are collaborating to tackle larger and more complex challenges beyond the organisation and sectorial boundaries. Examples of such challenges include the emergence of new industries and markets, financial crises and political conflicts, responses to socio-cultural change, the provision of health care and education, the prevention of crime and poverty, the shift to renewable energies, etc. Interactions between public, private and nonprofit actors can happen in hybrid organizations, contractual partnerships and more informal exchange.
In cross-sector collaborations, the partners bring in heterogeneous resources which promise to be complementary in the design and implementation of innovative solutions to societal and economic problems. This particularly applies to intangible resources such as knowledge. However, before cross-sector collaborations can live up to their potential in exploiting existing and creating new knowledge, the involved actors have to bridge high cognitive distances. Government, business and civil society have their own logics and practices, and these profound differences may inhibit understanding and learning across sectoral boundaries. Moreover, although cross-sector collaborations build on shared overall goals, the partners may also pursue diverging interests and hidden goals.
All told, the management of knowledge, learning and innovation is a severe challenge within societal sectors but even more in cross-sector collaborations. This track will address questions related to this challenge:
• What are the main drivers of, and barriers to, knowledge sharing, learning and innovation in cross-sector/within-sector collaborations?
• How do structural characteristics of the collaboration (e.g., origin and experience of partners, network size, governance of the partnership, life-cycle stage) affect knowledge, learning and innovation?
• How do actors in cross-sector/within-sector collaborations cope with divergent logics and arrive at shared mental models and joint decisions?
• What practices of knowledge governance and management (e.g., boundary spanners, communities of practice) facilitate learning and innovation in cross-sector/within-sector collaborations?
We welcome theoretical and empirical (both quantitative and qualitative) papers and give no priority to a specific field of operation or kind of collaboration. However, a strong focus on the relational aspects of knowledge, learning and innovation will be appreciated.
Proponents: Nina Katrin Hansen (corresponding proponent) (N.K.Hansen[at]bath.ac.uk, University of Bath, UK), Arjan Kozica (ESB Business School Reutlingen, Germany), Barbara Müller (JKU University Linz, Austria), Vanessa Ratten (La Trobe Business School, Australia), Yvonne Van Rossenberg (University of Bath, UK), Juani Swart (University of Bath, UK), Rick Vogel (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Deadlines: Paper submission: 12 January 2016 (2 pm Belgian time)
Notification of acceptance: 15 March 2016
Early birds registration: 1 April 2016
Authors' registration: 12 April 2016
Guidelines: http://www.euram-online.org/programme2016/call-for-papers.html
Prof. Dr. Rick Vogel
University of Hamburg
Faculty of Business, Economics & Social Sciences
Department of Socioeconomics
Chair of Public Management
Von-Melle-Park 9
Room B238
20146 Hamburg
Germany
Phone +49(0)40 42838 8228
Fax +49 (0)40 42838 8383
Rick.Vogel@wiso.uni-hamburg.de
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