Role of 'champions of collaboration' in fostering inter-organizational collaboration

Summary form only given. After reviewing the literature, we define innovation as development and implementation of new ideas/products/processes/services by people who collaborate with others in a formal or informal order. In our study, we have found that people and communication are two critical factors in innovation and collaboration. In our view, rapid technological change and globalization of business activities are causing firms to simultaneously focus on building and maintaining core competencies and at the same time trying to address the demand for broader social, sustainability. These environmental pressures require multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder responses and are causing firms to look for breadth of capabilities. We have argued that to manage breadth and depth simultaneously, firms are increasingly engaging in inter-organizational collaboration. The major objective of our research is to compare people and communication aspects of the innovation process in different settings. In this study we have applied case study research methodology to explore the role of 'champions of collaboration' in Canadian and Japanese firms. Our case studies show that the nature of collaboration and communication varies across cultures. In the future, we will explore how the champions of collaboration can overcome the challenges of communication in cross-cultural settings. We also explore how we can find these 'champions of collaboration' inside an organization and nurture, facilitate, reward, and develop them.