In the modern, global, marketplace it’s increasingly likely that you will have a number of collaboration partners.  I’ve written previously about the various forms of partnerships you can enter into, and the ways you can grow your partner network.

When designing your collaboration network, there are three broad designs you can look to incorporate.

1. Hub and spoke – Like the wheel of a bicycle, the hub and spoke model sees your company placed firmly in the middle, with spokes then representing the links outwards to your collaboration partners.  Such a network sees your company as the most important member of the network, as few (if any) of your partners are connected to one another.  Such a model was used very successfully by Apple, and represents the opportunity to make revolutionary advances in innovation, due to the powerful position you have at the centre of the network, pulling in information from an often disparate range of partners.
2. Integrated model – The integrated approach to network building sees a significant growth in connectivity between your partners.  In this kind of model it is more of a partnership of equals, where each member brings something valuable to the network.  Members typically share the same types of information and are more likely therefore to develop common norms due to the frequent exchange of information.  This type of model is excellent for complex projects that require extensive collaboration and iterative innovations.
3. A hybrid design – The final approach to network building reflects a combination of these two approaches, whereby some of your collaboration partners are connected, and some aren’t.  As you can imagine, the more this network leans towards one or other of the first two designs, the more it will reflect their respective merits.  So the less connections it has, the more suited to breakthrough innovations, whilst the more connections, the more suited it is to collaboration and cooperation.

Despite the strong need for such partnerships, striking up a successful collaboration remains difficult, especially as the complexity of the arrangement grows.  For instance, it’s estimated that over 100 companies worked together on the latest Boeing aircraft.

The need for such partnerships was emphasized by a recent announcement by the UK health secretary Jeremy Hunt whereby he revealed that a number of innovation partnerships would be struck with hospitals around the world to allow the UK to learn from pioneers in their field.

How to forge successful international partnerships

A recent study from Wharton explored how such international partnerships operate, and some of the facets of them that are crucial to success.

There is on one hand the high potential of an extensive global network of innovation partners, but of course such extensiveness adds a large degree of complexity in terms of management of the network.

The study explored whether there was an ideal combination in terms of overseas and domestic partners.  The authors studied companies in life sciences and biotech that had partners in over 57 countries.

Radical innovations

They found that the best composition of ones partnership network depended very much on the kind of innovation you require.  If you require radical, ground breaking innovations that see a distinct shift from the status quo, then you are likely to benefit from all foreign partners.

If you are seeking more incremental, marginal gains style innovation however, then the authors suggest you will achieve greater success with an all domestic network of partners.

The results proved to be robust and consistent across nations and cultures, so the authors believe they provide strong evidence for the best form of innovation network.

Creating the right mix

If you’re looking to create the right combination of innovation partners therefore, it’s important that you consider the kind of innovation you’d like to achieve.

“In a nutshell, I think what it tells you is that if you’re a manager and you’re in charge of global R&D, and especially global R&D partnerships, you have to be aware of the entire network and the mix of foreign and domestic partners and how that is affecting the types of innovations you produce and the efficiency with which you can produce innovation,” the authors say.