Elena Bou
Associate Professor in the Department of Operations Management and Innovation, and Director of GRACO Research Group at ESADE Business School. Her research and teaching focuses on innovation networks, knowledge and learning.

Nowadays it is generally accepted that the focus of innovation is found at the interstices of collaborating groups and organisations. This focus on collaborative innovation has encouraged many organisations to start inter-organisational agreements with a variety of firms, research centres, universities and stakeholders. However, it is not only a business phenomenon. Policy-makers have also turned their attention to the problem of how to foster innovation by developing different collaborative mechanisms at a regional and national level.

Paul Almeida McDonough School of Business Georgetown University

Jan Hohberger Department of Business Policy ESADE Business School

Pedro Parada Department of Business Policy ESADE Business School

The knowledge intensive areas of our economy are characterized by rapid innovation fueled by technological and scientific advances. For firms competing in knowledge based industries, continuous access to new information, know-how, and ideas is essential to success. Firms create new knowledge through investments in R&D but, given the rapid pace of knowledge development around the world, and given the numerous scientific and technological frontiers along which innovation takes place, no firm can internally develop all the knowledge needed for success. Firms must, therefore, continuously access knowledge from other organizations including domestic and international firms, government laboratories, and universities.

The importance of innovation

Innovation in general is a very important factor for almost all type of businesses but especially in the service sector constant innovation may be the key to reach and maintain an outstanding competitive position (Martin and Horne, 1995; Kandampully, 2002; Roberts and Amit, 2003). This extraordinary need of innovation is caused by some special aspects of the service business that we have summarized by the "service competition trap".

Max Boisot
Professor of strategic Management, Birmingham University & The I-Space Institute, Philadelphia