Managing Collaborative Risks of Integrated Open-Innovation and Hybrid Stage-Gate Model by Applying Social Network Analysis: A Case Study

It is often argued that efficient collaboration is the key to success. However, research shows that if collaboration is not properly managed, collaborative risks may emerge, threatening business success. Furthermore, research shows that there is a lack of models to support the management of collaborative initiatives in organizations. To address this lack, presented in this work is a model to manage collaborative risks in organizations that work under the open innovation and the hybrid stage-gate development frameworks (two of the most popular collaborative frameworks in product and process development). The model presented in this work is a novel approach to manage collaborative risks in the open innovation and the hybrid stage-gate frameworks, and was developed based on network graph-theory to be used to identify informal collaborative interactions that may lead to the emergence of three major collaborative risks: (1) partner choice risks, (2) task assignment risks, and (3) behavioral risks. The results of the application of the proposed model in a real organizational collaborative context illustrated in the case study show that such collaborative risks can be identified in a timely manner, enabling an organization to efficiently and preventively act to minimize or eliminate the undesired effects of the mentioned collaborative risks.