Creating Collaborative Advantage

In the emerging new collaborative economic order, innovation is achieved by an integrated process of collaboration between policymakers, business and society. Often, the focus for this collaboration is at a regional level. Creating Collaborative Advantage examines the trends in innovation policy that reflect this new thinking and regional focus. This book develops the view that collaboration is one of many ways of organising a competitive economy. It asks how, when and where collaboration is a meaningful way of organisation. It explores collaboration at business level, business networks between companies, and a wider collaborative coalition between business and public authorities. It is not a manual, a 'how to do it', because there is no single straightforward universal model to replace current orthodoxy on economic development, but it will enable people to learn. The contributors to this unique book have been involved with the implementation of some of the most outstanding examples of collaborative approaches, it therefore gives an outstanding picture of diversity, inbuilt comparisons and contrast, and debate between the cases. The co-authors give their understanding of these issues, but the book tries to establish some common understandings and bring the concept of collaboration to a larger audience, and to increase interest in a field which requires further exploration. Policy makers, advisers and administrators at all levels of government, those involved in research and development, and business leaders and educators, will find this book invaluable, together with readers having an academic interest in the subject of innovation.

Hans Christian Garmann Johnsen is a professor in the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Agder in Norway. Professor Garmann Johnsen is a specialist in the study of working life and innovation. He has an MBA from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration and gained his PhD at the Copenhagen Business School. He has been a visiting scholar and fellow at several universities including UC Berkeley and Cornell in the USA. For 15 years Garmann Johnsen has been involved in a national research programme into collaborative innovation. He has written and presented papers and authored journal articles published worldwide. Richard Ennals is Professor of Corporate Responsibility and Working Life at the Centre for Working Life Research, Kingston Business School, Kingston University in the UK. He is a visiting professor at the Swedish Royal institute of Technology, and a director of the UK Work Organisation Network. He is Vice-Chair of the World Council for Total Quality and Excellence in Education. Ennals is Review Editor of the journal AI and Society and has himself authored many books, papers and journal articles.