Process-based temporal coordination in multiparty collaboration for societal challenges

Solving complex societal challenges requires innovation processes that involve heterogeneous organizations collaborating for sustained periods of time. These multiparty collaborations are confronted with incongruent temporal structures, creating temporal complexities that hamper joint action. We draw on an in-depth longitudinal field study of a multiparty collaboration in a “living lab” initiative that aimed to develop innovative solutions to enhance a city’s nightlife area’s safety and economic viability. We unpack the process of temporal coordination by identifying three temporal coordination mechanisms that enabled parties to address temporal complexities: leveraging serendipitous alignment, temporary exclusion, and aligning on the future. Whereas, prior research has stressed synchronization as a dominant approach to coordination, rooted in a clock-time orientation, these three mechanisms for temporal coordination are rooted in process-time. With a process-time orientation, temporal coordination becomes inherently partial and transient, meaning that temporal complexities may resurface over time and require re-initiation of joint action, building upon emerging outcomes of previous episodes. We discuss implications for the literature on interorganizational collaboration and temporal coordination.