The power of heterotopias: Inter-organizational cooperation as an exp...

Given the complex societal tasks organizations are forced to deal with today, inter-organizational relations and cooperation as a means to handle the challenges have gained increasing importance in organizational practice, and attention in the relevant scientific discourses. The talk aims to contribute to an advanced understanding of driving forces in inter-organizational initiatives with innovation- and transformation-oriented intentions. A particular focus is on the spatial dimension, on experimental spaces that emerge in transformative inter-organizational initiatives, and its influence on inter-organizational acting. It is on "other spaces" that provide the possibility to overcome institutional routines and foster creativity and innovation. Michel Foucault's concept of heterotopias allows us to understand better the significance of such spaces that stand outside the regular, that reverse it, and, at the same time, contain it. Against the background of a case study on a project-based initiative in the education sector, i.e. the establishment of a Lab for innovative forms of education in a Science & Technology Park, it is discussed how inter-organizational initiatives can meet the characteristics and claims of heterotopias, particularly in the context of innovation processes. Furthermore, if it is the case they can, the question arises, how the heterotopic character of such arrangements can be developed and maintained. Recalling the philosophical concept and linking it to organization research enriches experimental spaces' concepts and allows the development of a multi-dimensional model that integrates a structural and a process-oriented view and points out the significance of the emerging space that is mainly driven by positive attributions to it and by the subsequent (collective) emotionality.