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

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