Inter-organizational Innovation Networks: An Approach to stay competitive in a VUCA World?

An Analysis of Application to the Brose Group

Our world today is not only shaped by ongoing globalization and digitalization, but above all it has to deal with an always higher degree of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. In short, we live in a VUCA world. This acronym describes an environment in which it is an almost impossible mission to predict what the future may bring (Bennett & Le moine, 2014; Rauen, Sauter & Gleich, 2010, pp. 3–10). It becomes apparent that this world seems to be highly chaotic and incomprehensible. Brose, has recognized that they cannot paint a realistic picture of the future without including external partners in their own development process. Engagement in inter-organizational innovation networks might be a way to overcome the previously described challenges that VUCA and megatrends such as digitalization have created and will continue to create. This work is not only interested in finding out if innovation networks represent a suitable approach to stay competitive in a VUCA world, but also wants to develop a procedure to correctly approach network(ing) activities. A network model will be derived after having answered the key research questions concerned with the identification of network types, clarification of network relevance and identification of success factors of innovation networks.