Volume 12 of this annual series focuses on achieving improving innovation in organizations through collaboration. The chapters present a variety of methods and settings that explore ways that collaboration can be utilized to enable and enhance innovation.

Creativity often leads to the development of original ideas that are useful or influential, and maintaining creativity is crucial for the continued development of organizations in particular and society in general. Most research and writing has focused on individual creativity. Yet, in recent years there has been an increasing acknowledgment of the importance of the social and contextual factors in creativity. Even with the information explosion and the growing necessity for specialization, the development of innovations still requires group interaction at various stages in the creative process. Most organizations increasingly rely on the work of creative teams where each individual is an expert in a particular area. This volume summarizes the exciting new research developments on the processes involved in group creativity and innovation, and explores the relationship between group processes, group context, and creativity. It draws from a broad range of research perspectives, including those investigating cognition, groups, creativity, information systems, and organizational psychology. These different perspectives have been brought together in one volume in order to focus attention on this developing literature and its implications for theory and application. The chapters in this volume are organized into two sections. The first focuses on how group decision making is affected by factors such as cognitive fixation and flexibility, group diversity, minority dissent, group decision-making, brainstorming, and group support systems. Special attention is devoted to the various processes and conditions that can inhibit or facilitate group creativity. The second section explores how various contextual and environmental factors affect the creative processes of groups. The chapters explore issues of group autonomy, group socialization, mentoring, team innovation, knowledge transfer, and creativity at the level of cultures and societies. The research presented in this section makes it clear that a full understanding of group creativity cannot be accomplished without adequate attention to the group environment. It will be a useful source of information for scholars, practitioners, and students wishing to understand and facilitate group creativity.

While innovation has long been a major topic of research and scholarly interest for the private sector, it is still an emerging theme in the field of public management. While ‘results-oriented’ public management may be here to stay, scholars and practitioners are now shifting their attention to the process of management and to how the public sector can create ‘value’. One of the urgent needs addressed by this book is a better specification of the institutional and political requirements for sustaining a robust vision of public innovation, through the key dimensions of collaboration, creative problem-solving, and design. This book brings together empirical studies drawn from Europe, the USA and the antipodes to show how these dimensions are important features of public sector innovation in many Western democracies with different conditions and traditions. This volume provides insights for practitioners who are interested in developing an innovation strategy for their city, agency, or administration and will be essential reading for scholars, practitioners and students in the field of public policy and public administration.

Innovation and Collaboration in the Digital Era provides a holistic approach to collaborative innovation, innovation management and innovation leadership. It is full of practical advice and includes 34 interviews with high-level politicians, innovation industry leaders, academics and entrepreneurs discussing the reality of innovation and how to create change for a positive impact. Many quotes are included from researchers and practitioners in the innovation field who have participated as guests in the author’s podcast “Business of Collaboration” or in interviews with the Collabwith Magazine which she produces. This is a powerful book full of practical frameworks and one-page canvases which act as reminders of the value of making needs and expectations explicit. The author provides frameworks and tools that can be used to support collaboration journeys across different sectors and organizations. She also offers clarity to the reader for their innovation journey and brings a new perspective on how to innovate and understand innovation. Jara Pascual focuses on the importance of managing emotions and feelings of frustration which can be very common during a collaborative innovation process. She explores the interaction between Emotional Intelligence and business and shows how to remove and manage frustration and how to produce a positive outcome. Innovation and Collaboration in the Digital Era will empower the reader to take action and show how to change your conversation about innovation and collaboration. “Jara Pascual, with colleague Celia Avila-Rauch, has been able to distill and apply the ability model of emotional intelligence to the art and science of innovation and innovation leadership. In our work we note that feelings are not always facts but that emotions as a form of data. More than that, emotions can assist or facilitate with decision making, creativity and innovation rather than getting in the way, but only if leaders are “smart” about emotions and develop and deploy their emotional intelligence skills.” Dr David R Caruso, Emotional Intelligence Skills Group, Founder Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Research Affiliate

Today’s consumers are more knowledgeable, networked, and vocal. For them consumption is not merely an act of buying products and services, but an expression of their creative potential. Consequently, they are demanding a say and a voice in how companies conceive, develop, and deliver value to them. It is not surprising, therefore, to hear that a large number of companies are transforming how they innovate—not only in terms of developing new products and services, but in how they are created, delivered, and supported to customers. Open Innovation thinking, where companies collaborate with suppliers, distributors, and customers to co-create unique value, is fast replacing traditional thinking that viewed innovation as a proprietary activity and marketing as a static, one-way broadcast. However, while there is significant advocacy and buy-in for collaborating with customers, there is little guidance for companies on how to undertake the journey from applause and appreciation to execution. Only reading about others’ success stories – Nike, Hallmark, P&G, Mozilla, etc. – is not sufficient for helping a company develop a blueprint for themselves. In Customer Driven Innovation, strategy and branding consultant Gaurav Bhalla presents a concrete framework to help companies systematically and effectively design and implement collaborative innovation programs with their customers that can be applied in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer contexts. The authors describe how today’s technologies allow companies to create dynamic dialogues with their customers through shared networks, virtual marketing techniques, and blogs to develop deeper relationships that reinforce brand loyalty and ultimately drive growth. They challenge traditional approaches to market research that measure "customer satisfaction" from a rear-window perspective, and help companies and their customers look forward instead.P>

While innovation is widely recognised as being critical to organisational success and the well-being of societies, it requires careful management to ensure that innovation processes have the best possible impact. This volume provides a wide range of perspectives on the nature of innovation management and its influences.

Higher education spaces are undergoing radical transformations in an attempt to respond to the needs of 21st-century learners and a renewed interest in collaboration that spans beyond the walls of departments, colleges, and libraries. Cases on Higher Education Spaces: Innovation, Collaboration, and Technology highlights key innovations and collaborative ventures in space design from across campuses and institutions. Including writing and communication centers, studios, libraries, digital media labs, learning commons, and academic learning spaces, this collection is ideally suited for university and professional administrators.