Innovation and Networks Crossing Organisational Boundaries

Organisers – Paola Criscuolo, Bill McEvily (Toronto University), Ammon Salter
Date/time – 27 May, 1200-1700, 28 May 0900-1400
Location – Room SALC7, 5th Floor, Sherfield Building, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ

This one-day workshop will explore how the innovative performance of individuals, teams and firms are affected by networks crossing organisational boundaries. Network positions have been found to be important for a wide range of individual and organisational outcomes. Yet our current research has tended to focus on either networks within the organisation or networks across organisations. Rarely have scholars combined insights on intra- and inter-organisational networks and, in particular, their role in shaping innovative outcomes. Efforts to characterise knowledge exchange inside organisations has focused on internal networks and therefore has tended to treat the firm as if it was a sealed environment without an external face. Conversely, the literature on inter-organisational networks focuses on how organisations get access to external ideas and resources through formal organisation-to-organisation ties.

This workshop seeks to bring together a small number of scholars working on this topic to explore new ways to understand and investigate how internal and external networks shape each other, and how together, internal and external networks may influence innovation. The workshop will focus on leading edge empirical and theoretical contributions in the following areas:

• Multi-level analysis of inter-firm networks and innovative performance
• Individual innovative performance and boundary spanning activities
• Knowledge sharing across organizational boundaries
  

The workshop will be organised around the presentation of research papers at the formative or working paper stage and/or prior to submission to a journal. Each paper will be discussed by two participants as well as an invited audience. We anticipate eight to ten presentations with a total of 30-35 attendees. Travel (economy) expenses and one night accommodation for invited speakers will be covered by Imperial College, through funding gratefully received from AIM Research.

For more information please contact Shelley Meehan