Zoekresultaten

Imagineering as collaborative innovation by design (keynote)

Networked Innovation in Classical Music

Collaborative approaches: studying horizontal and vertical working relations in schools and how they relate to collaborative-innovation practices

In Nordic countries, as well as in the Netherlands, schools have high school autonomy. In schools there are both horizontal and vertical working relations and all teachers and school principals within a school are expected to take responsibility for collaborative-innovation practices (CIP). In this paper, we describe a study investigating how both horizontal and vertical working relations relate to CIP. We used longitudinal questionnaire (2036 teachers, 157 schools) and interview data (53 teachers, 20 schools). These data were gathered in Dutch schools participating in the large-scale ‘LeerKRACHT’ program. The results show that teachers perceive horizontal and vertical factors to enhance CIP. Furthermore, especially school principals and coach-teachers seem to be able to strengthen horizontal and vertical factors which leads to more CIP. We discuss implications for research and schools in the Netherlands and beyond. Schools operate in demanding and rapidly changing environments. As a result, teachers and school principals are expected to continuously improve their school practices to maintain the quality of the education they provide. In literature on school development, change, and reform, there is an increasing emphasis on investigating how various educational interventions turn out. Some of these studies highlighted that interventions are sometimes an isolated activity of one teacher or a small group of teachers According to Vangrieken et al. in education, a strong-rooted culture of individualism, autonomy, and independence appears to be dominant. A ‘culture of collaboration’, however, has many advantages. This is also shown in research traditions of whole-school improvement. It can result in more ‘school democracy’ and more appropriate ideas and solutions for the challenges faced by schools. A growing number of schools have begun to initiate types of teacher collaboration, such as ‘professional learning communities’ and ‘data teams’. Such collaborations of teachers in schools can be called horizontal working relations. Researchers from Nordic countries for instance studied the horizontal forms of accountability and responsibility in schools. Consequently, international scholars have called for more ‘networked’ and ‘collaborative’ approaches. In the organizational literature, the notion of collaborative innovation is used for such approaches, which is characterized by both horizontal and vertical working relations. This notion fits within the broader field of school development research that approaches development as a collaborative process as well. Here both teachers’ working relations (horizontal) and working relations between teachers and school principals are studied (vertical). Studying both fits with the culture of The Netherlands and Nordic countries, which are found to be in the same cultural clusters, appreciating team-oriented and participative leadership, including horizontal and vertical working relations. However, in daily school practice it seems that breaking with the individualistic culture and changing to more collaborative-innovation practices is hard. We have an unique opportunity to study the relationship between horizontal and vertical working relations and the degree of collaborative-innovation practices (CIP). Since, in the Netherlands there is a large-scale program called LeerKRACHT that aims to stimulate CIP in schools (LeerKRACHT means “Learning force” and also “Teacher” in Dutch). The program expects from both teachers and school principals to collaborate and share resources, knowledge, and ideas and it thus asks for at least one manner of working together. The program is used by over a thousand schools in the Netherlands, and the data used in the current paper are gathered as part of a larger research project in which this program was evaluated. We study the degree of CIP in primary, secondary, and vocational schools with a mixed method approach both at the start and when working on collaborative-innovation practices in a structured way with the program ‘leerKRACHT’.

Collaborative service innovation

Designers move more and more in the direction of Service Design, in which frequently a participatory or co-design approach is used to involve service providers in the design process. The designerprovider relationship in such Service Design processes differs in four aspects from traditional client-relationships: The relationship is 1) more dynamic and interactive, 2) based on collaboratively evolving ideas and ambitions, 3) focusing on the process of innovation, rather than on the outcome, and 4) frequently based on extrinsic motivation for innovation or on fuzzy starting points. Designers experience difficulties in persuading service providers of the importance of such a collaborative approach, while providers are not familiar with this kind of approach and their organizations are not ready for such a kind of collaboration. This paper positions designer-provider relationship in Service Design processes in literature and describes a research proposal for the development of an efficient and effective participatory design intervention that stimulates collaboration between designers and service providers.

Collaborative organizing for grand challenges 

The Collaborative Innovation and Entrepreneurship professorship focuses on the collaborative paradigm in economic transformation - the ways diverse organizations in globalvalue chains innovate and act in partnerships to address ecological and social grand challenges. Collaboration with multiple and diverse stakeholders is complex and challenging. Stakeholders have different interests, may compete with each other, or are just not ready to move as fast or as radically as others. Yet, we know that grand challenges are too complex and systemic for any one organization to address alone. Business leaders have an important role to play in transforming economic ecosystems and catalysing change among stakeholders and industry actors. They must move from linear thinking, where sustainability is a market for green or social products, to circular and inclusive thinking, where regeneration of natural ecosystems occurs and economic profits are equally distributed.The Collaborative Innovation and Entrepreneurship professorship aims to contribute knowledge, support organizations, and facilitate learning about collaborative organizational forms and practices - what we call collaborative organizing - for a more sustainable, regenerative and thriving 21st century economic system.

Leading collaborative innovation in schools

Educational innovations often tend to fail, mainly because teachers and school principals do not feel involved or are not allowed to have a say. Angela de Jong's dissertation shows the importance of school principals and teachers leading 'collaborative innovation' together. Collaborative innovation requires a collaborative, distributed approach involving both horizontal and vertical working relationships in a school. Her research shows that teams with more distributed leadership have a more collaborative 'spirit' to improve education. Team members move beyond formal (leadership) roles, and work more collectively on school-wide educational improvement from intrinsic motivation. De Jong further shows that school principals seek a balance in steering and providing space. She distinguished three leadership patterns: Team Player, Key Player, Facilitator. Team players in particular are important for more collaborative innovation in a school. They balance between providing professional space to teachers (who look beyond their own classroom) and steering for strategy, frameworks, boundaries, and vision. This research took place in schools working with the program of Foundation leerKRACHT, a program implemented by more than a thousand schools (primary, secondary, and vocational education). The study recommends, towards school principals and teachers, and also towards trainers, policymakers, and school board members, to reflect more explicitly on their roles in collaborative innovation and talk about those roles.