*** Apologies for any cross-postings ***
We would like to draw your attention to the following call for papers and look forward to receiving your submissions.
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 non-profit 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@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
Author Guidelines: http://www.euram‐online.org/programme2016/call‐for‐papers.html
Best wishes and kind regards
Dr. Nina Katrin Hansen
Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer in HRM & Organization Studies
School of Management
University of Bath
BA2 7AY Bath, UK
Email: N.K.Hansen@bath.ac.uk