MIT Sloan Management Review

Executives from around the world agree that research and development is a global effort requiring collaboration. Yet many say their organizations must improve in this area — evolving from the centralized approach that’s prevalent today — to meet strategic goals. In other words, for today’s R&D organizations, there is a significant gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Vital as it is to their futures, the art of collaboration is one that many R&D organizations have yet to master.

When companies collaborate, low trust is detrimental to innovation. But so is very high trust. The optimal level, yielding maximum impact, lies in between.

When customers collaborate with suppliers they can build trust, reduce relational stress, and increase innovation-related activities.

Many organizations commit large amounts of resources to maintain their competitiveness through innovative activities.

How your IP strategy might be killing your open innovation activities — and what you can do to make it an enabler, even a builder of industrial ‘ecosystems,’ instead.

Should external innovators be organized in collaborative communities or competitive markets? The answer depends on three crucial issues.

“Not invented here” has become an outdated mind-set in the modern corporation, as shrinking product life cycles and rapid technological evolution have opened corporate attitudes toward external research and development partners. Yet three business school professors conclude that companies should be careful when selecting the partners with whom they collaborate.C

Knowledge sharing between partners has more upsides than downsides, provided that the right kind of knowledge goes back and forth.

The Internet does a great job of facilitating knowledge sharing through tools such as wikis and forums. But these tools have their limitations.

Why are some employees adept at getting the information they need while others struggle to locate the right in-house experts?

The concept of “co-opetition” — particularly collaboration with rivals involving jointly developing technologies — is inherently paradoxical.

The purchasing function can go beyond mere cost cutting by rote. It can add value by driving innovation and superior long-term cost performance.

There is a consensus among futurists that business is the only institution capable of providing effective global stewardship. As a result, a good deal of attention is being paid to mapping the future performance of businesses and the economies in which they operate.

Organizations are increasingly able to gather and process information from a variety of new sources. But competitive advantage will still belong to those who know how to use it.

Many companies have struggled to design IT systems, databases and content repositories that provide their employees with easily accessible and relevant information. The authors urge organizations to emulate the strategies of Google, eBay and Amazon.com, whose core competence is based upon making it easy for customers to find what they want — quickly, accurately and usefully.

By sourcing and integrating knowledge from dispersed geographic locations, companies can generate more innovations of higher value and lower cost.

The authors contend that contemporary management education does a disservice by standardizing content, focusing on business functions (rather than on managing practices) and training specialists (rather than general managers). Working with several major international universities, the authors have developed seven tenets to improve MBA programs by grounding them in practical experience, shared insight and thoughtful reflection.

Many companies keep their suppliers at arm’s length. But partnering with vendors — sharing valuable knowledge with them through organized networks — can be a sustainable source of competitive advantage.

A conventional wisdom about teams is that they tend to perform better when members exchange knowledge freely among themselves and outsiders. Another widely accepted notion is that diversity among team members leads to better performance because of the range of viewpoints and experience of the different individuals.

The ability to generate an emotional response is the key to any leader’s success. Moses got his people’s undivided attention by putting the fear of a wrathful God in them.