Performance in Publicly Funded Innovation Networks (PFINs): The role of inter-organisational relationships

This research investigates how performance in Publicly Funded Innovation Networks (PFINs) is affected by the inter-organisational relationships in terms of alignment between network administration and participating organisations. Our findings from a longitudinal embedded case study of a PFIN in the Nordic maritime industry show two key insights.

First, we identify three patterns of inter-organisational relationships: functional (alignment between the selforganised relationships by project partners and relationship requirements from network administration), dysfunctional (contradictions between the selforganised relationships by project partners and relationship requirements from network administration), and anarchic (self-organised relationships by project partners with a lack of direction or leadership).

Second, we show that each of these patterns of inter-organisational relationships have different effects on performance factors. An unexpected emergent finding was the observation of sub-circles of functional relationships within projects of dysfunctional relationships aimed at circumventing the misaligned requirements of network administration.

We propose a conceptual framework detailing the effects of these three relationship patterns on PFIN performance in terms of immediate and long-term effects.