The development of co-innovation strategies: stages and interaction patterns in interfirm innovation

Organizations that choose or are forced to innovate in co-operation withother organizations, go through four stages of co-innovation strategy development.The stages are successively: (1) autonomous strategy making: organizations developstrategies on their own, (2) co-operative strategy making: organizations concentrateon developing innovation strategies in close co-operation with other organizations,(3) founding an organization for co-innovation: organizations found a jointorganization in which they develop co-innovation programs, and (4) realization ofinnovations: organizations develop innovations, based on the co-innovation strategiesand programs. The description of the stages is based on an interfirm networkapproach and a research project in the Dutch construction industry. The stage modelcan be a guideline for organizations that participate in co-innovation processes andhave to decide how and with whom to co-innovate.