Collaboration Models and Knowledge Management

Within the Bazaar of Opportunities firms’ possibilities and motivation for business development and innovation is always connected to both external and internal factors. Networked innovation environments are one-of-a-kind from every actor’s viewpoint. Each firm also has its own set of knowledge, part of which might be protected with intellectual property rights (IPR). One of the typical problems — likely to be familiar to all readers — is that the value of potential knowledge or IPR seems to be extremely hard, if not impossible, to estimate with any reasonable accuracy. Notwithstanding the inherent challenges in valuing long-term research or development projects with payoffs directed well into the future, the perceived problems in knowledge management and valuation may also partly reflect the fact that the broader objectives for different knowledge are not adequately defined in a company’s strategy. The key questions in the valuation of innovation initiatives should always be: “What do we hope to gain from this effort?” and “How does that support our present and future business development targets?” Chapter 6 goes through these key questions related to IP strategy and valuation within networked innovation. In this chapter we will reflect on how the knowledge type, the development targets and motivation influence the choice of collaboration models.In order to study the motivation of network actors and its influences to the choice of collaboration models, this chapter bridges the concept of networked innovation with strategic knowledge management. A strategic approach to knowledge management1 is needed in order to describe what a firm knows and must know about its present networked business environment and competitive position. In order to be successful in the Bazaar of Opportunities the strategic considerations about the future competitive edge form an important groundwork. However, our intention is to highlight the fact that you must consider both the internal factors as well as external drivers in order to define the game, the players, your own position and possibilities to set the rules of the game within the Bazaar of Opportunities.