The effects of intra-organisational collaboration in reducing uncertainties for enhancing the performance of innovation projects : the role of organisational learning

Abstract

Innovation is essential for business prosperity and a major driver of success and sustainability in today's world. The history of organisation-level innovation projects (products, services and processes) is rich with cases of great ideas that failed to be realised as well as those creative ideas that ended in remarkable success. The rate of reported failure of innovation projects is however, much higher than reported success. Innovation project uncertainty is considered a key reason for innovation project failure (García-Quevedo et al. 2018). Scholars in innovation management studies confirm that uncertainty is a natural and intrinsically inherent characteristic of innovation projects (Roper & Tapinos 2016; Um & Kim 2018). A knowledge gap about how to reduce uncertainty in order to enhance innovation project performance however, persists. Indeed, extant research on managing innovation projects is for the most part theoretical and lacks empirical evidence regarding effective organisational practices that reduce innovation project uncertainty for successful project performance. This research responds to this lack of empirical evidence by proposing intra-organisational collaboration as an organisational practice, and empirically examining its impact on reducing innovation project uncertainty and improving innovation project performance, whilst considering the mediation role of organisational learning in this relationship. Based on a systematic literature review, this research develops a comprehensive conceptual framework that assesses the relationships between intra-organisational collaboration, organisational learning, innovation project uncertainty reduction and innovation project performance in the context of innovation projects. The thesis draws on the three most common sources of innovation project uncertainty: task, market and technological in examining how innovation project uncertainty can be reduced through intra-organisational collaboration. Additionally, it integrates previous studies to conceptualise intra-organisational collaboration as a multi-dimensional construct made up of by five sub-constructs: collaborative relationship, collaborative leadership, communication and sharing information, trust formation, and commitment. The findings of this research offer several insights into the context of innovation projects. First these findings highlight the need for organisations to embed collaborative practices in their project's environment. This research found that collaborative practices operated dialectically in enhancing organisational learning and enabled project members to manage complicated tasks, foresee future demand and market changes as well as solve technological problems. These collaborative practices allowed project members to successfully reduce innovation project uncertainty and enhance project performance.

Date of Award	2022
Original language	English