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Collaborative Innovation in Academia: In Search for Coalitions and Strategic Alliances for HRM Transformation

Paul Boselie (Utrecht University School of Governance, Utrecht University, The Netherlands)

Talent Management in Higher Education

ISBN: 978-1-80262-688-9, eISBN: 978-1-80262-685-8

Publication date: 21 May 2024

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Abstract

Worldwide academia is going through a major transformation because of Open Science and Recognition and Rewards movements that are linked to big societal challenges such as climate change, digitalization, growing inequality, migration, political instability, democracies under threat and combinations of these challenges. The transformations affect the human resource management (HRM) and talent management of universities. The main focus of this chapter is on collaborative innovation and the way universities participate in coalitions and strategic alliances on national and international levels. These platforms not only discuss the transformations and support the academic changes but also act as talent pools and talent exchange. This chapter provides an overview of the current state of affairs with respect to Open Science and Recognition and Rewards in academia. Next, a theoretical foundation is presented on the concepts of collaborative innovation, coopetition and HRM innovation in general. The leaders or leading organizations in the HRM innovation models often can’t make it happen on their own, in particular in highly institutionalized contexts such as academia. The legitimacy of transformations requires coalitions of the willing and therefore strategic alliances on different levels. The coalitions in academia can also contribute to academic talent management through sectoral transformations (see Recognition and Rewards) and through the way these coalitions operate.

Keywords

Citation

Boselie, P. (2024), "Collaborative Innovation in Academia: In Search for Coalitions and Strategic Alliances for HRM Transformation", Thunnissen, M. and Boselie, P. (Ed.) Talent Management in Higher Education (Talent Management), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 161-177. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80262-685-820241009

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2024 Paul Boselie

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Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. These works are published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these works (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode.

Introduction

The goal of this chapter is to deframe and unwrap the nature of collaborations, alliances and cooperation in higher education, in particular linked to human resource management (HRM) transformations such as the worldwide Recognition and Rewards movement in academia. Collaborative innovation is a concept used for describing and studying organizational cooperation in often complex, dynamic and highly competitive environments. Knowledge exchange, employee rotation and joint investments in employee development can be part of this phenomenon that has also entered academia. In addition, it is relevant to take into account the motives for cooperation that are built on gaining social legitimacy, in particular, in public sector and semi-public sector environments such as health care and education.

The Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), for example, was developed in 2012 during the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in San Francisco. In 10 years’ time, DORA has become the symbol for academic changes and has grown towards a global network of all scholarly disciplines and all key stakeholders including funders, publishers, professional societies, institutions and researchers. The objective of the DORA is to improve the ways in which researchers and the outputs of scholarly research are evaluated, therefore directly affecting HRM policies and practices for talent development. 24,449 individuals and organizations in 165 countries have signed DORA to date (January 2024). It is an example of collaborative innovation of individuals and institutions in academia with the aim:

  • To change the sector.

  • To change organizations including universities, funders and governments.

  • To change employees working in academia, in particular, with respect to the evaluation of research and research output.

This chapter is devoted to coalitions and strategic alliances that focus on HRM (Boxall & Purcell, 2016) transformations in academia. The type of coalitions and alliances that will be covered is also known as collaborative innovation and coopetition. Cooperation and collaboration aimed at higher purposes can even cover organizations working in a competitive environment such as universities that compete on talented students, talented workers and funding (Bacon et al., 2020). The concepts of talent and talent management (both part of the broader concept of HRM) are both subject and object in this chapter on collaborative innovation. The Recognition and Rewards transformation focusses on the search for a new balance in the academic employment relationships, making it an object to study. The cooperations themselves, however, also highlight the concept of talent as subject in terms of human beings that are actors in the process of cooperation. The shaping of university cooperation is therefore intertwined with talents and talent management, in some cases even enabling talent management including knowledge and employee exchange. Although academic cooperation is often an institutional and strategic issue, the nature of cooperation is human behaviour, a people activity.

This chapter starts with a short overview of academic cooperations of the past and the present followed by setting the stage of academia in transition. Next is a theoretical overview focussed on the key concepts of collaborative innovation and coopetition. In addition, there is a section on leaders and laggards in innovation to explain underlying mechanisms and principles of cooperation and innovation. Typical coalitions and alliances in academia, including concrete examples, will be covered next to get a better understanding of the ambitions and the nature of these forms of university cooperation. Finally, the link between collaborative innovation and talent management in academia will be presented.

Setting the Stage: Academic Cooperation

There is a long-standing tradition of university cooperation. League of European Research Universities (LERU) is an example of an alliance of 23 universities advocating for the promotion of basic research at European research universities. LERU aims at furthering politicians’, policymakers’ and opinion leaders’ understanding of the important role and activities of research-intensive universities. To pursue its goals effectively, LERU also maintains contacts with institutions around the world that contribute to science policymaking and research funding. Other examples of university networks and cooperations are as follows:

  • The Coimbra Group, a network of strong European universities that seeks cooperation around strategic themes and for new forms of exchange and global engagement.

  • International Association of Universities (IAU), a global association of diverse higher education institutions, promoting and advancing a dynamic leadership role for higher education in society by providing expert trends and analysis, publications and portals, advisory services, peer-to-peer learning, events and global advocacy.

  • European University Association (EUA), a ‘centre of excellence’ in higher education and research.

These university networks were built for different purposes including research and education knowledge exchange, increasing bargaining power towards national governments and international governmental bodies such as the European Union (EU). Cooperation, alliances and networks in academia are therefore not completely new. However, DORA is an example of a new type of collaboration aimed at a sectoral change and organizational innovation. If we want to deframe and unwrap the nature of new types of academic collaboration linked to HRM and talent management in higher education, we first need more background information on contemporary academia in line with the book chapter by de Haan et al. (2024) in this book.

Big societal challenges such as climate change, growing inequality, digitalization, ageing populations and worldwide political instability call for an open scientific approach in both research and teaching: Open Science. In an open approach, there is room for public engagement, education is at least partly publicly available, data and findings are open access and research is not just focussed on scientific publications in so-called high-ranked journals. This Open Science approach also requires a different recognition and rewards of academic activities, not just focussed on research, the individual employee and one-dimensional performance outcomes such as the number of publications, the h-index, the JIF, grants and prizes. Instead Open Science and the (new) Recognition and Rewards focus on multiple dimensions (education, research, impact and patient care), team spirit (the collective), academic leadership and multidimensional outcomes (VSNU et al., 2019).

Radical sectoral and organizational changes such as a transformation towards Open Science and an alternative recognition and rewards in academia are not easy, obvious and automatic. These large changes often require some kind of crisis for developing a sense of urgency in combination with leadership, vision and a coalition of the willing. Academic fraud cases (data fabrication, data manipulation and plagiarism) led to a number of incidents and academic crisis showing there was simply too much at stake for individuals to misbehave for meeting up the outcome standards for excellent performance. The Stapel data fabrication case in the Netherlands is an example of an incident that had a huge impact on Social Sciences and academia in general. The publication and research grant successes in this particular case showed the vulnerability of the academic system of recognition and rewards. In response, there was more attention for compliance and replication study relevance. This was the starting point for others to raise awareness of a necessary change as formulated in DORA (2012). DORA is an example of a statement (declaration) towards a new vision on research evaluation. Other initiatives followed in the years to come (e.g. the VSNU et al., 2019, position paper), initiatives that can be labelled under the heading of collaborative innovation. Many individuals and institutions have become aware that universities have to go back to the crossroads and take an alternative route. In summary, there was and is a burning platform (sense of urgency), and there are initiatives (new platforms and alliances) such as DORA that pick up these challenges in a joint effort to make sectoral changes happen.

Theoretical Framework Part 1: Collaborative Innovation and Coopetition

When actors of different organizations get together to create some kind of innovation of products, services, networks, people management and/or knowledge exchange, it can be called collaborative innovation. Participating organizations can have different backgrounds, operating in completely different sectors (Bommert, 2010). Torfing (2018, p. 1) provides the following definition for collaborative innovation in the public sector context:

Collaborative innovation is a distinctive approach to public innovation that both eschews the idea that innovation results from the heroic efforts of great individuals who operate in a stimulating environment and receive support from sponsors and champions, and the idea that positive and negative incentives combined with a new focus on performance measurement will greatly stimulate innovation in the public sector.

The author argues that

Collaborative strategies facilitate the exchange of knowledge, competences and ideas between relevant and affected actors and thus stimulate processes of mutual learning that may improve the understanding of the problem or challenge at hand and extend the range of creative ideas about how to solve it. (Torfing, 2018, p. 1)

In other words, there is an intention (strategy) aimed at some kind of ultimate goal (improvement) that is related to understand a problem or challenge and solve it. The individuals (heroic efforts of great individuals) act on behalf of their organizations and therefore implicitly represent human capital (talents) and enablers of social capital through network, relationship and collaboration building.

There are multiple examples of public–private collaborative innovation. The Brainport region of the city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands including Philips, ASML, Eindhoven University, Fontys University of Applied Sciences, multiple small and medium enterprises and the local government of Eindhoven closely work together and have created an innovative and attractive working and living environment in a region that used to have high unemployment rates in the 1970s and 1980s. There is often a major challenge (sense of urgency) that cannot easily be solved by an individual or a single organization. The challenges are the starting point for getting other organizations on board who are also confronted with the major challenge. Each organization can contribute an essential piece of the (new) puzzle, and the whole is more than the sum of its parts.

A specific form of collaborative innovation is so-called coopetition in which competitors get together in a cooperation, often because the major challenges all single organizations are facing can’t be solved by an individual organization (Bacon et al., 2020). In some cases, the research and developments costs for technological innovation are simply too high. An example are the laboratories (e.g. connected to Leuven University in Belgium) that develop small chips and organic chips for computers and electronic equipment. In other cases, there is a need for social legitimacy for an innovation that can only be obtained with a full support of the majority of organizations in a sector. Coopetition can also be the basis for sharing knowledge and experiences to jointly compete with other countries. Van den Broek et al. (2018) study a specific form of HRM coopetition in hospitals. In this empirical study, the focus is on a talent pool of nurses who are working in four different hospitals that operate in the same region in the south of the Netherlands. This is a coopetition example of organizational cooperation of hospitals that compete on both clients and employees (including nurses), because their common challenges (to attract and retain highly qualified and motivated workers) cannot be solved by each individual organization. Apparently, their common major organizational and HRM challenge of attracting and retaining nursing staff was too difficult to solve by each single hospital. They decided to start working together on the theme and came up with a joint talent pool. From a micro economic perspective, this is fascinating, because competitors for certain resources (the nurses that represent the human resources of these organizations) get together and start cooperating on managing these (scarce, valuable, difficult to imitate and difficult to replace) resources (Shaw, 2021). One of the big incentives for all four participating hospitals was the observation that more and more nurses intended to leave the health-care sector for work in other ‘better’ organizations. That tendency of leaving the sector was problematic for all hospitals leading to an increased competition on the nurses that stayed. A similar development can be observed in academia where employees suffer from work pressure, and the competition between workers has moved towards unhealthy proportions and high risks for academic fraud, for example, for getting stuff published.

Coopetition is a more intense form of collaborative innovation because in the case of coopetition, the cooperation involves direct competitors on resources (e.g. financial and human resources) that could be a source for competitive advantage. The strategic choice for organizational involvement in coopetition is theoretically based on notions that the direct competition on resources (see also Chapter 5 of this book) is of lesser importance than the higher purposes of cooperation to achieve a stronger organizational position and sustained competitive advantage. Part of the achieved organizational advantage may lie in the social legitimacy that is gained through a collective approach. According to the strategic balance theory, organizations seek sustained competitive advantage through structural above-average organizational performance in combination with social legitimacy that is in line with the population’s social legitimacy (Deephouse, 1999). Collaborative innovation and coopetition echoes the general idea of ‘together we are strong’ and therefore less vulnerable.

Forms of collaborative innovation and coopetition have emerged in academia over the last 10 years (Hartley et al., 2013). The type of cooperation in academia can have many different forms, ranging from alliances to networks: nationally and internationally; research, education or policy focussed; temporarily linked to, for example, a research project or structurally (e.g. the LERU network). Both collaborative innovation and coopetition, as will be discussed later in this chapter, have played an important role in building coalitions and strategic alliances aimed at Open Science and the Recognition and Rewards transformation. There are signs of temporarily and permanent employee exchanges through the Recognition and Rewards alliances that have emerged the last couple of years.

Theoretical Framework Part 2: Leaders, Laggards and Legitimacy

Paauwe and Boselie (2005) presented a conceptual framework for HRM innovation combining institutional theory and innovation approaches. From an institutional perspective, organizations become more similar (so-called isomorphism) because of micro economic mechanisms (imitation on the basis of best practices and successful products/services) and institutional mechanisms. Institutional mechanisms consist of coercive mechanisms (legislation, societal norms and values, procedures, etc.), normative mechanisms (professional norms and values, professional associations, etc.) and mimetic mechanisms (imitation on the basis of uncertainty and social legitimacy) (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983).

Innovation approaches, in particular, Rogers (1995) and Mirvis (1997), provide insights into the diffusion and adoption of innovations in organizations. Rogers (1995) makes a distinction between innovators (venturesome), early adopters (respect), early majority (deliberate), late majority (sceptical) and laggards (traditional). Mirvis (1997) distinguishes leaders, fast followers, slow followers and laggards. Paauwe and Boselie (2005) argue the following:

  • Innovators (leaders) are often high-risk taking, show pro-active behaviour, want to stay ahead of competition, are subject to possible high returns, but can also suffer possible loss.

  • Early adopters and early majority (fast followers) are balanced risk takers, want to achieve competitive advantage and move forward and are subject to satisfying returns.

  • Late majority and laggards (slow followers and laggards) try to avoid competitive disadvantage and go with the flow, avoid risk taking and are driven by social pressure (social legitimacy, reputation and fairness).

For an innovation to be successful and broadly applied in, for example, a sector or population, a certain critical mass of organizations that apply the innovation is required. This is where innovators, early adopters and part of the early majority play a crucial role. It is difficult to predict the tipping point (number of organizations required for a critical mass) in any innovation, but it is likely that between 15% and 40% application of an innovation within a sector or population will lead to a broad application of the innovation in all the other organizations. From an institutional perspective (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983) and a legitimacy perspective (Suchman, 1995) ‘the others’ have to adopt to avoid organizational legitimacy issues and risks of negative effects on the corporate reputation.

If there are enough higher education institutes getting involved in the Open Science and Recognition and Rewards transformation (read innovation), all other organizations will have to follow. And this is where coalitions and strategic alliances can play an important role, not just for reaching a critical mass of organizations involved but to apply institutional mechanisms (coercive, normative and mimetic) to get all the other organizations on board.

The declarations made by DORA, Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (COARA) and the VSNU et al. (2019) can be considered normative mechanisms that stem from professional associations, coalitions of the willing and strategic alliances. Some of the core values and new principles are already adopted by national governments, the European Union and research funders in line with the coercive mechanisms presented by DiMaggio and Powell (1983). There are first indications of the emergence of mimetic mechanisms (individuals and universities that under scribe the Open Science and Recognition and Rewards transformation) triggered by the fact that so many other individuals and institutes are doing it. The scepticism remains, but in a rather different form, for example, stating ‘I am supporting Open Science and the Recognition and Rewards transformation, but …’. When the most critical opponents are making these kinds of statements, it could be an indication that the tipping point has been reached, and there is a critical mass for further innovation and transformation. That in itself, however, is absolutely no guarantee for effective implementation and internalization of the Open Science and Recognition and Rewards transformation. It is just another step forward. Here, we can find a link to the concept of legitimacy.

Organizational legitimacy can be defined as ‘a generalized perception or assumption that actions of an entity are desirable, proper, or appropriate within a socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs, and definitions’ (Suchman, 1995, p. 574). The Open Science movement and the Recognition and Rewards transformation represent sector-wide, national and international dynamics that put pressures on organizations – universities and other organizations in the higher education population such as research funders, the national governments and the European Union – to meet or adopt legitimacy expectations set at sectoral and societal levels. Gaining legitimacy is relevant for a successful transformation. Collaborative innovation and coopetition through coalitions and strategic alliances can be highly effective and necessary in a highly institutionalized higher education context.

Suchman (1995) makes a distinction between different types of legitimacy. Pragmatic legitimacy mainly rests on self-interested calculations of an organization’s most immediate audiences. Universities applying this type of pragmatic legitimacy are probably not the leaders and innovators in Open Science and the Recognition and Rewards transformation, but their involvement can be important for creating a critical mass necessary for a broad transition of the whole sector. Moral legitimacy builds on the question of whether a given activity is the right thing to do and not on judgements about whether a given activity benefits the evaluator. Moral considerations play an important role in the Open Science and Recognition and Rewards transformation, for example, directly related to transparency, open access, public engagement and the search for the right balance between research and teaching. Cognitive legitimacy is based on the acceptance of the organization as necessary or inevitable based on some taken-for-granted cultural account. It does not involve evaluation on moral grounds. Cognitive legitimacy can be broadly defined as how well organizations execute their activities from their stakeholder’s point of view (Suchman, 1995). A lot of the early Open Science and Recognition and Rewards debates are strongly related to the search for moral legitimacy (‘why?’). The cognitive legitimacy is much more functionalistic, for example, focussed on ‘see what happens if we do not transform, employees will walk away’.

A mixture of pragmatic, moral and cognitive legitimacy will emerge in Open Science and Recognition and Rewards transformations. Organizational legitimacy, however, is necessary for successful and effective changes of a sector and organization. Without legitimacy no sustained transformation. This is where coalitions and strategic alliances can play a significant role on moral issues (the right thing to do), good practices and best principles that link to cognitive legitimacy and also pragmatic issues to get sceptic people and organizations on board just because they are aware that not participating in any coalition or alliance can be even more harmful for the reputation of the individual and institute. If you can’t beat them, join them.

Coalitions and Strategic Alliances in Academia

From a broad perspective, there are multiple forms of academic cooperation at different levels. On an individual and team level, there are research project cooperations across institutes and universities, for example, funded by national and international funding agencies such as the European Union. On a national level, there is university cooperation on, for example, collective bargaining agreements that cover employment working conditions. Another example of cooperation across university borders relates to professional associations that are linked to different academic disciplines, each having their own conferences, journals and professional development. Finally, both research and education accreditation often lead to joint efforts of different universities and therefore some kind of institutional cooperation. These forms of university cooperation, both temporarily and structurally, lead to knowledge and worker exchange in combination with an increasing chance of employee mobility through the connections that are being made.

For a better understanding of the motives of cooperation, we can look at existing and emerging coalitions and alliances, in particular one linked to the VSNU et al. (2019) position paper in the Netherlands and one with an international-focussed called COARA. In 2019, five Dutch institutes – VSNU (employers’ association Dutch universities), NWO (research funder), ZonMW (health care and medical research funder), NFU (employers’ association Dutch academic hospitals) and KNAW (Royal Dutch Academy – presented a position paper with the title ‘Room for Everyone’s Talent’ (VSNU et al., 2019). The cooperation between these five institutes can be considered a coalition and strategic alliance between five key players in Dutch academia.

In the VSNU et al. (2019) position paper, it is stated that the necessary transformation calls for a system of recognition and rewards of academics and research that:

  • Enables the diversification and vitalization of career paths, thereby promoting excellence in each of the key areas.

  • Acknowledges the independence and individual qualities and ambitions of academics as well as recognizing team performances.

  • Emphasizes quality of work over quantitative results (such as number of publications)

  • Encourages all aspects of Open Science.

  • Encourages high-quality academic leadership.

The position paper marks the start of a transition on a national and university level. The Dutch transition is now led by the UNL (formerly known as VSNU) and its Recognition and Rewards project team that organizes events such as dialogue sessions, an annual Recognition and Rewards festival, and supports the national platform Recognition and Rewards. The national platform Recognition and Rewards has representatives of all the Dutch universities, both local Recognition and Rewards chairs and local HRM professionals, who meet on a regular basis to exchange experiences, ideas and knowledge. Every Dutch university has committed itself to the core values and principles of the Recognition and Rewards position paper (2019). The national platform Recognition and Rewards itself is another example of collaborative innovation and coopetition. The visions of each Dutch university on Recognition and Rewards are shared, and good practices are exchanged. This national alliance also creates social legitimacy towards the academic communities given the involvement of the five major institutes and all the Dutch universities.

The burning platform for the 2019 position paper was the perceived urgency for a sectoral change that was picked up by some academic leaders such as Rianne Letschert, who is now the President of Maastricht University. ‘Leading by example’ is an important principle for agenda setting and gaining legitimacy for change. Letschert is not just one of the recognition and rewards initiators but also a leading administrator of a university who is implementing the change in her own Maastricht University. Dialogues and discussions of national institute leaders (VSNU, KNAW, NWO, NFU and ZonMW) were the basis for a position paper that was presented on a national conference where all the Dutch universities and institutes were invited. For some, joining the movement was perhaps based on cognitive social legitimacy (a strong belief in doing the right thing); for others, joining the movement might have been on the basis of pragmatic social legitimacy (join because others are involved as well). The fact that the initial movement was supported by all the relevant Dutch institutes and all the Dutch universities was a strong signal towards the Dutch academic community and the basis for a national coalition and Recognition and Rewards network that can be labelled collaborative innovation.

The COARA is an international coalition that drafted an agreement on reforming research assessment in January 2022. More than 350 organizations from over 40 countries were involved. Organizations involved included public and private research funders, universities, research centres, institutes and infrastructures, associations and alliances thereof, national and regional authorities, accreditation and evaluation agencies, learned societies and associations of researchers and other relevant organizations, representing a broad diversity of views and perspectives. COARA builds on 10 commitments:

  • Recognize the diversity of contributions to, and careers in, research in accordance with the needs and nature of the research.

  • Base research assessment primarily on qualitative evaluation for which peer review is central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators.

  • Abandon inappropriate uses in research assessment of journal- and publication-based metrics, in particular inappropriate uses of journal impact factor (JIF) and h-index.

  • Avoid the use of rankings of research organizations in research assessment.

  • Commit resources to reforming research assessment as is needed to achieve the organizational changes committed to.

  • Review and develop research assessment criteria, tools and processes.

  • Raise awareness of research assessment reform and provide transparent communication, guidance and training on assessment criteria and processes as well as their use.

  • Exchange practices and experiences to enable mutual learning within and beyond the coalition.

  • Communicate progress made on adherence to the principles and implementation of the commitments.

  • Evaluate practices, criteria and tools based on solid evidence and the state-of-the-art in research on research and make data openly available for evidence gathering and research.

Although COARA is mainly aimed at research assessment in academia, it is a good example of a coalition and strategic alliance according to collaborative innovation principles for a transformation towards Open Science and an alternative Recognition and Rewards in academia. The ‘C’ in COARA literally refers to the concept of coalition, more specifically the coalition of the willing. The implicitly signals that those who do not sign are unwilling or unable to make the necessary changes. This is a key element in social legitimacy for major changes and with a critical mass of innovators a potentially source for a change of a whole sector or society. Resistance to the coalition of the willing or non-participation in coalitions of the willing could have a negative impact on the social legitimacy of a university and damage the corporate image. In contrast, active participation in a coalition of the willing could be a form of employer branding, a key for attracting and retaining qualified and motivated personnel.

Membership of an alliance such as COARA or the signing of a declaration of, for example, the DORA manifest does not automatically imply that the organization is actually embracing and implementing the underlying Recognition and Rewards principles. Membership and signing a declaration are, however, important symbolic and institutional actions that have meaning for creating sectoral and organizational change. It is something that can be used in debates and to hold leaders accountable for in the organizational change process.

Interface Between Coalitions and Strategic Alliances in Academia

Alliances and coalitions operate on different levels, and within universities, there are also multiple levels that affect the shaping of Open Science and Recognition and Rewards. But there is more to it than a multilevel approach and perspective. The different levels interact and strengthen or weaken each other. University representatives, linked to Open Science and Recognition and Rewards, are often member of multiple coalitions and strategic alliances. They incorporate not only human capital in terms of knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) related to the alliances themes but also social capital through their social networks and acquaintances. These university representatives can be seen as ambassadors of their university, their country and specific themes. Participation in coalitions can be a source of knowledge exchange, lobbying organizational and national interests, mutual learning and agenda setting at national and international levels.

DORA and COARA on an international level and the VSNU et al. (2019) position paper initiative on a Dutch national level are not operating in isolation. First, there are many more initiatives of strategic alliances and coalitions aimed at Open Science and alternative Recognition and Rewards. In some case, existing networks and alliances are used and dedicated to Open Science and the Recognition and Rewards transformation. CHARM-EU (Challenge-driven, Accessible, Research-based, Mobile, European University) is an alliance of European universities, co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme, consisting of the University of Barcelona (coordinator), Trinity College Dublin, Utrecht University, the University of Montpellier, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, Åbo Akademi University, Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg and the Ruhr West University of Applied Sciences. CHARM-EU works together to design and create a new university model to become a world example of good practice to increase the quality, international competitiveness and attractiveness of the European Higher Education landscape. TORCH (Transforming Open Responsible Research and Innovation through CHARM) is a project funded by the European Union under the Horizon 2020 programme which aims to develop a common Research & Innovation (R&I) agenda for the European universities initiative. TORCH aims to achieve this main goal through the consolidation of CHARM-EU’s vision and mission based on transdisciplinarity and interculturality to solve complex societal challenges and by reinforcing teaching and research strategies as part of the Vision 2030 developed by the European Commission. The TORCH project is part of CHARM-EU, which in itself is a strategic alliance that also focusses on Open Science and Recognition and Rewards as an example of the many coalitions and alliances that co-exist.

Second, both individuals and institutes participate in multiple coalitions and alliances. Just to give a couple of concrete examples. Professor Rianne Letschert is President of Maastricht University, but she is also one of the founders of the VSNU et al. (2019) position paper on ‘Room for Everyone’s Talent’. Since December 2022, Letschert is also Chair of COARA, the international coalition of the willing on alternative research assessment. She is an example of a person who is heavily involved in multiple alliances and coalitions creating connectivity between the different networks and forms of collaborative innovations on Open Science and Recognition and Rewards. Utrecht University is an institute that is actively involved in multiple coalitions including DORA, COARA, CHARM-EU, TORCH and the national platform Recognition and Rewards. From Utrecht University, there are multiple chairs who are connected to each of the alliances and coalitions. Professor Frank Miedema, for example, is Chair of Open Science at Utrecht University and actively involved in CHARM-EU and TORCH. Professor Paul Boselie and Dr Stans de Haas are the two Recognition and Rewards chairs at Utrecht University and in their role involved in the national platform Recognition and Rewards. Connections on individual and institute levels between different coalitions and strategic alliances create potential positive synergistic effects. These positive synergistic mechanisms are what Delery (1998) calls ‘powerful connections’ in strategic HRM. The idea behind a powerful connection is that the whole is more than the sum of its parts because separate elements strengthen each other.

Finally, visibility of university representatives in the networks and alliances not only strengthens an organization’s position but can also lead to free publicity for a university or country that is transforming. The exposure of the Dutch Recognition and Rewards transformation since 2019 through representatives has been beneficial to the universities involved and the Netherlands as academic environment. There is, of course, a risk involved of negative impact on universities and a country if the transformation turns out to be bad for individuals and the organization. The basic idea is that together we bake a huge pie with different alliance partners and people from different universities. When the pie is ready, there is plenty of room for everybody to get a piece of the pie (room for competition on, e.g., students, employees and resources). The unwilling or those who decide not to participate run the risk of a negative impact on social legitimacy and costs (not benefiting from the innovations made or lessons learned). See the section on leaders and laggards in the theoretical part of this chapter.

Shaping Talent Management Through Collaborative Innovation

Several of the coalitions and strategic alliances mentioned in this chapter, in particular, COARA and the Dutch national Recognition and Rewards platform, apply some kind of inclusive talent management approach (Thunnissen et al., 2013) not only in the models presented but also in the way the coalitions and strategic alliances are open for a broad category of employee groups to get involved in the transformation process. In the VSNU et al. (2019) position paper ‘Room for Everyone’s Talent’, the emphasis is not just on diversification through a variety of profiles and accents in careers and positions but also on an open invitation for early career academics and academic support staff to get involved in the change process. The annual Dutch Recognition and Rewards Festival, organized by the national platform Recognition and Rewards, offers a podium for everybody to not only participate in the different workshops but also organize the workshops. ‘Room for Everyone’s Talent’ is not alone an aim in itself but also embedded in the transformation itself, a way of making explicit: practice what you preach.

There are lots of ‘untapped resources’ within universities, people who are willing and able to get involved in coalitions and strategic alliances. This requires a different approach, because universities have a tendency to send the ‘usual suspects’ (mostly senior staff with prior experience in networks and alliances) to represent an institute. The right mix between ‘usual suspects’ and ‘untapped resources’ could also imply unique approaches and insights from those with lots of prior experience and those who are eager to contribute to necessary transformations. According to the Harvard model in HRM, employee influence and employee involvement are considered the most powerful HRM domains for affecting employee attitudes and behaviours (Beer et al., 2015).

The coalitions and strategic alliances mentioned in this chapter (DORA, COARA, CHARM-EU and the Dutch national platform Recognition and Rewards) have not only led to knowledge exchange but also cooperation across organizational boundaries and the exchange of employees. New formed local, national and international teams linked to the coalitions and alliances create new ways of working for those involved. The technological developments in combination with the Covid-19 online experiences have made it much easier to work in national and international teams without the need for travelling all the time. These teams often consist of employees with different backgrounds and a variety of functions. The Open Science and Recognition and Rewards focus of the coalitions and alliances have also contributed to the development of specific KSAs for those involved. Specific examples are open access officers, FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data and software officers, and public engagement officers. There are multiple examples of Open Science and Recognition and Rewards teams where members moved from one institute to another institute, for example:

  • An open access officer from a Dutch university moved to a senior Open Science position in another university.

  • An Open Science programme manager of a Dutch university took a temporarily part-time secondment at the Dutch Ministry of Higher Education on Open Science.

  • An open access officer from a Dutch university transferred to the Dutch research funder NWO for a senior position in Open Science and open access.

The examples are unintended, meaning there is not a talent management strategy for employee exchange. This, however, could be the next step in some of the coalition and strategic alliances in line with the study by Van Den Broek et al. (2018) on a talent pool of four hospitals (intended talent exchange). Human capital through KSAs and social capital through networks and cooperation can be a source of innovation, transformation and competitive advantage for those involved (Wright et al., 2001). Intended employee mobility similar to the talent pool of nurses studies by Van den Broek et al. (2018) could be a next step in the coalitions and network of academia. The exchange of human resources through external mobility can be beneficial for the organizations involved (e.g. knowledge exchange) and the individual employee (e.g. strengthening sustainable employability for those involved). In that sense, ‘open science’ also implies more employee exchange between academic institutes and also academia and society.

When we look more closely to the type of cooperation linked to the open science and Recognition and Rewards transformation, more specifically with respect to the talent factor, we may have to conclude that there is little or no coopetition on talents comparable to the study by Van Den Broek et al. (2018). The talent exchange is still very much linked to specific individuals and their own initiatives. In other words, the cooperation facilitate talent mobility but is not directly aimed at some kind of joint talent pool and collective talent exchange. That could, however, be the next phase in the transformation process.

Conclusion

The HRM transformations described in this chapter refer to the Open Science and the Recognition and Rewards movement in academia. Coalitions and strategic alliances can play an important role in the transformation process. The people of different organizations and institutes involved in the coalitions and alliances can be considered human resources and talents that form the basis for exchange and connectivity. This form of talent exchange is relevant for the networks, the organizations and the individuals involved in terms of both organizational learning and individual learning. The nature of the human capital and social capital exchange can be considered talents as objects (Thunnissen et al., 2013). The exchange of KSAs through coalitions and strategic alliances is part of the talent as object of talent management in higher education. Collaborative innovation or coopetition in academia can have different shapes that can be studied in future research, for example:

  • The intended exchange of human resource (talent mobility) for knowledge exchange and employee sustainable employability purposes; employee mobility.

  • Joint training and development programmes on, for example, Recognition and Rewards transformation or on leadership development; employee development.

  • The formation of joint tasks forces for organizational learning and development as a form of temporarily project management; teamwork.

  • Joint coaching and mentoring programmes in which coaches and mentors of one university are linked to an employee of another university; coaching and mentoring.

In summary, collaborative innovation and coopetition can involve employees (human resources), knowledge, skills and HRM practices such as joint training and development.

Collaborative innovation should not be underestimated in highly institutionalized contexts such as higher education and comparable public sector organizations. Future research in this area could be aimed at, for example, the effectiveness of coalitions and strategic alliances for HRM transformations. Another theme for future research could focus on co-evolution, in particular how individual organizations can affect a sector or population and the other way around. Finally, experiments could be developed for actual talent exchange between participating organizations, similar to the talent pool described in the study by Van den Broek et al. (2018).

In a balanced approach to HRM, the goals are not simply to increase employee mobility, joint training and development, new forms of cooperation (teamwork) or employee support through coaching and mentoring. Instead, a balanced approach in HRM focusses on optimizing organizational effectiveness, employee well-being and societal well-being (Beer et al., 2015). It is important to acknowledge that there are always strategic tensions between these three ultimate goals. High employee mobility through human resource exchange can be beneficial for the sustainable employability of the individual employees while at the same time putting pressure on the organizational continuity, for example, with respect to research and education productivity and services delivered.

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