Development of innovative partnership: from Co-working to Co-Innovation

Innovative activity in the current conditions of fierce competition, digital transformation and rapid development of technologies is impossible within the framework of one particular company; cooperation is a must: we need the help of specialist consultants, analysts, manufacturers, marketers. For large corporations with resources and connections, innovation becomes burdensome, it is very difficult to engage in both production and research; there is a need to attract small innovative enterprises, start-ups that do not have financial resources, but have “ideas”, flexibility, and agility to organize the innovation process. Cooperation of various organizations in innovative activities is carried out in various forms, the most famous are: Co-working, Co-Location, Co-creation, Collaboration, Co-innovation; this calls for their comparative analysis. Cooperation in innovation activities is possible in the form of an innovation partnership (still underexplored). The purpose of this study is to analyze various forms of innovative cooperation, their differentiation, to determine the content of the concept of “innovative partnership” and its principles. In the process of the research, the provisions of the theory of innovative economics, management, enterprise, the scientific foundations of structural transformations, set out in the works of Russian and foreign scientists were used. The article presents new scientific results. The necessity of cooperation in innovative activity is substantiated, the possibility of using the concept of “innovative partnership” is determined, the essential forms of cooperation/partnership in innovative activity (Co-working, Co-Location, Co-creation, Collaboration, Co-innovation) are differentiated, their advantages, disadvantages, features of use are determined; the conclusion is made about the evolutionary development of forms of joint work. The author’s definition of the concept of “innovative partnership” is proposed: it is a set of relations between various participants (partners), the organization of joint innovation activities and labor and capital, fixed and not legally fixed, involving the achievement of the goal (development of an innovative product) and observing the interests of each of the partners. The principles of innovative partnership are defined: openness (transparency) of activities, equality and mutual respect of participants, focus on the final, common strategic result (innovative product), coordination of all actions of partners, compliance with the rules of teamwork (formation of an innovative team, distribution and coordination of the performance of functions), compliance balance of economic interests of all participants. Directions for further research involve the development of tools for assessing the effectiveness of each of their essential forms of innovative partnership.