Inter-company networks for jointly developing innovative products: Configuration and current examples from German industry

Mahipat Ranawat, Paulius Armonaitis

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2008
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783640171200
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Engineering General
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Technology, grade: 1.7, Hamburg University of Technology, language: English, abstract: Owing to the rapid technological advancement and globalization, the innovation paradigm has shifted from closed innovation to open innovation. Adopting the open innovation paradigm, companies increasingly look for external sources of ideas as well as external paths for in-house technologies. On the other hand, the tendency of firms to focus on their core competencies has made them to interact on a greater extent with their suppliers. This increased interaction and collaboration has resulted in formation of relationships between organizational entities. Organizations, along with their set of relationships, form a network-type structure. Networks that focus on innovations are referred as innovation networks. Inter-company networks, a sub-type of innovation networks, focuses collaborative activities especially between firms among other organizational entities.The paper discusses networks in general and considers inter-company networks in particular. With the growing number of inter-company networks and the need to identify patterns within them, the concept of network configuration is discussed. At the end of paper, examples of inter-company networks in Germany are provided and analysed with reference to the theoretical background provided in preceding parts of the paper.