Negative Spillovers Across Partnerships for Responsible Innovation: Evidence from the 2014 Ebola Outbreak. (23rd June 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Arslan, Birgul; Tarakci, Murat
• Is Part Of: Journal of management studies. Volume 59:Number 1(2022)
• Page Start: 126
• Page End: 162
• Publication Date: 2020-06-23
• Subjects: Ebola outbreak -- grand challenges -- interorganizational relationships -- responsible innovation; Industrial management -- Periodicals; 658
• DOI: 10.1111/joms.12607
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0022-2380

Abstract

Abstract: Humanity faces ongoing and contemporaneous grand challenges. Occasionally, abrupt shocks escalate a grand challenge's salience over others. Prior research has advocated forming partnerships to address grand challenges via responsible innovation. Yet, it remains unclear how temporal changes in the salience of a grand challenge impact innovation performances of partnerships. We address this research gap by bridging the literature on issue salience, responsible innovation and interorganizational relationships. We argue that shocks either aid or harm the performance of partnerships for responsible innovation depending on whether their domains are directly or indirectly affected. The Ebola outbreak in 2014 sets the empirical context to test our theory. We find that while the innovation performance of Ebola partnerships formed after the outbreak rose eleven‐fold, the performance of partnerships treating Influenza fell by 84.9 per cent. Our theory and findings have immediate implications for today's COVID‐19 outbreak, cautioning against salience shifts among concurrent grand challenges.