Aligning private and public domains for sustainable disruptive innovation

This paper addresses the constellation of various actors from private and public sectors represented by three companies, a municipality, a non-profit organization, a research lab and users to collaborate on bringing forward a sustainability driven disruptive innovation. The purpose of the paper is to investigate how the various actors’ interests and contributions influence the management of the collaboration setup and what barriers and enablers boost or impede the outcome of the setup, i.e. deploying an innovation with sustainability promise. We argue that the alignment of diverse actors’ interests and aims for the innovation in collaborative settings is crucial for the collaboration to lead to desirable outcomes. However, only alignment at an abstract level cannot ensure success even when actors bring competencies that balance the innovation requirements. Rather, creating cohesion and commitment of all actors simultaneously at a concrete level is necessary. The integration of new approaches to collaboration such as design methods may strengthen commitment despite actors coming from different organizational cultures and traditions.