Inviting Strangers to get the gist of Radical Innovation: the Diversity Dilemma

This paper is about the way companies from a variety of industries (called strangers) come to create and develop innovation together, with the aim of accomplishing the holy-grail: a certain degree of radicalness in order to make money out of it, adapt the environment and increase the chances of surviving. On the basis of the configurations stemming from the assessment concerning the knowlegde about the likelihoods of accomplish a certain innovation, the knowledge about the nature of the outcomes, and the time frames, a theoretical model has been advanced. Two dimensions have been contrasted: the non-spatial proximity characteristics (knowledge base) of the partners involved into the collaboration setting, and the collaboration strategy in terms of the number of partners involved. The nature of the innovation accomplished was meant ot be incremental or radical in terms of its antecedents (nature of knowledge required) and consequences (impact). A typology of innovation resulted from the model: incremental^2 innovation (risky context), incremental-s1 x radical-s2 innovation (uncertain context), radical-s1 x incremental-s2 innovation (fuzzy context), radical^2 innovation (ignorance context). The framework contributes to understanding the primary and controversial role of diversity in order to make managers aware of the profound implications that such a strategic setting will bring when collaborations are to be planned.