Toward temporally complex collaboration in an interorganizational research network

Abstract

Prior research suggests interorganizational collaboration faces temporal challenges but also opportunities yet is scarce on the role of time enabling – more often deterring - collaboration for collective benefit. Our contribution is highlighting how a large industry-academic research network developed temporally complex collaboration through varying temporal rules and relationships. The three network-developed collaborative repertoires, with their particular temporal rules and relationships, complemented the externally imposed calendar repertoire: (1) sprint repertoire, following a familiar agile method for joint research, (2) narrative time repertoire, enabling sharing research results across various events at the program level, and (3) “right” time repertoire that turned research results into action in emerging business ecosystems. With these collaborative repertoires, both the temporal diversities of home organizations and the asynchronies of the network activities were resolved for collective benefit. We contribute to the intersection of the literatures on interorganizational networks and temporality as befitting collaboration.

Health crisis and the EU’s HERA: amplifying partial organizing with resourcing for stability, agility, and evolvability

“…Limited by treaty powers, such networks are heterogeneous and lack any shared authority. Thus, resourcing becomes potentially valuable not only because of the urgency of action in an emergency but because it yields collaborative tools for organizing without an external rule-maker being present (Jarvenpaa and Välikangas 2021 ). By operating across the three temporal schemas, a partial organization may be able to make the transition from building preparedness to taking swift action when needed in the “thick of time”.…”

Temporal Work: The Strategic Organization of Time

“…Temporal work can thus shape perceptions of the “right timing”, urgency, or windows of opportunities for action (Granqvist and Gustafsson, 2016). In another example, Sirkka Jarvenpaa and Liisa Välikangas’ (2022) study of interorganizational collaboration emphasizes how temporal work might shape participants’ willingness to create, rather than wait for, the “right time” for innovation.…”

“…The managerial challenge represented by temporal complexity – i.e., the coexistence of diverse and potentially conflicting temporal structures and assumptions among people who need to work together – is the central focus of both Jarvenpaa and Välikangas’ (2022) and Hilbolling et al’s (2022) studies. While temporal complexity is often seen as a deterrent for collaboration as different parties struggle to navigate multiple or conflicting temporal requirements simultaneously (Reinecke and Ansari, 2015), Jarvenpaa and Välikangas suggest that temporal complexity may also be an enabler of interorganizational collaboration.…”

“…In a typical intergenerational conflict in family firm succession, the senior family generation values perpetuation and legacy while the junior generations values renewal and innovation. On a different scale, conflicting assessments of the value of speed and timeliness partly underpin the temporal coordination struggles revealed in the Jarvenpaa and Valikangas (2022) and Hilbolling et al (2022) studies.…”

“…Feldman et al’s notion of continuity patterning is echoed in Jarvenpaa & Välikangas’ (2022) study of collaborative networks in a national research program on cloud software. The authors use the construct of collaborative repertoires to describe the endogenously emerging temporal rules and relationships that came to complement the externally imposed temporal rules assigned by outside project managers.…”