How to restore a lack of project commitment in public-private innovation consortia:

How to restore a lack of project commitment in public-private innovation consortia: A process analysis of the means available to project leaders and partners

MSc BA Strategic Innovation Management University of Groningen

Faculty of Economics and Business January 22nd, 2018

Marieke Zwaan s2210886

Word count including references and appendices: 16.929

Abstract

This paper investigates the restoration of commitment. By making use of extant research on trust repair, this study conducts a case study of a large public-private innovation consortium in the healthcare sector. Results show that there are both positive and negative means available to restore a lack of commitment, that in multilateral projects the restoring of

commitment is often a bilateral action and that the choice for using a specific means to restore commitment depends on several variables, such as the power of the violating partner and the effort and time that is needed to change the partner. Managerial and theoretical implications, as well as future research directions are discussed.

Introduction

Innovation consortia have become more prominent as a means to create value and gain greater efficiency (Steenkamp, Geyskens and Krishnan, 2015). These consortia are a type of strategic alliance that complements and supplements the internal activities of a firm. Their failure rates have proven to be very high though (Bleeke and Ernst, 1991; Doz and Hamel, 1998; Faems, Van Looy, and Debackere, 2005; Hagedoorn, 2002). Most analysts have found failure rates as high as 50 percent (Dacin, Hitt and Levitas 1997; Harrigan 1988; Kogut 1988). One of these potentially valuable, but often unsuccessful forms of alliances is the innovation consortium (Kaiser and Kuhn, 2012).

A consortium is a specific form of strategic alliance, in which multiple firms are responsible for specific parts of the project (Eisner, Rahman and Korn, 2009). These consortia often consist of public and private firms (Barringer and Harrison, 2000). A consortium enables the pooling of resources, which results in sharing risks, costs, and knowledge, and it provides essential R&D. A disadvantage though is, amongst others, that the specific mechanisms and structures involved create a low interdependence, which makes it easy for partner firms to lose interest (i.e. commitment) and even leave the consortium (Kanter, 1989).

Research has emphasized that commitment of partner firms to the relationship is essential to achieving valuable outcomes, and that it is very important for the quality of the relationship between the firms (Dorsch, Swanson and Kelley, 1998; Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Extant research has focused on partnerships between two firms (dyadic partnerships), while consortiums involve more than two partners which cooperate in different compilations (multilateral partnerships). The added complexity may make it even more difficult to manage and maintain this (partner) commitment. Despite the added complexity, often, consortia are large-scale, with many partners, since it is believed that this will lead to higher resource availability (Xia, Zhao and Mahoney, 2008).

innovation is hard to realize though because information and resources need to be shared in order to progress. This sharing lowers commitment since input from a partner does not directly result in benefits for this partner (Cullen, Johnson and Sakano, 1995). The large differences in backgrounds and aims between these partners create complexity in managing these public-private collaborations though (Cyert and Goodman, 1997). Combining this with the aforementioned high failure rate of alliances it is important to look at how these public-private innovation consortia can be managed to repair commitment, which has not been done yet in previous research (Hughes and Weiss, 2007).

Research is available on the antecedents of commitment to the project/relationship and the effects of commitment on performance. Several antecedents of commitment of (individual) partners have been identified, including: identified perceived symmetry of the amount of resources that other partners put in, responsibility for outcomes and strategic importance of the relationship (Cullen et al., 1995; Das and Rahman, 2009). Because of the importance of commitment to the success of inter-firm relationships, it is important to not only know what influences it, but also how it can be restored when commitment is lacking or when

commitment has been decreasing (Dalela, 2009; Dorsch et al., 1998; Morgan and Hunt, 1994).

The goal of this study is to discover how commitment emerges, dissolves and what can be done to restore this commitment in large-scale public-private innovation consortia. From a theoretical perspective, this is important because it will add to the knowledge about

commitment in inter-organizational relationships, and public-private innovation consortia in particular, which currently does not yet focus on restoring commitment.

The research question for this paper will therefore be: “How can project commitment be restored in large-scale public-private innovation consortia?”

For this study, the social learning perspective will be made use of. Social learning is “an interactive and dynamic process in a multi-actor setting where knowledge is exchanged and where actors learn by interaction and co-create new knowledge in on-going interaction” (Sol, Beers and Wals, 2013, p. 37). This perspective emphasizes that internal changes in social interaction between partners can take place, which have an influence on the quality and effectiveness on learning. Also, it stresses the importance of the diversity of partners for social learning because of the broader understanding that it offers and the larger capacity for joint learning. This diversity can also become a barrier to social learning though, due to the different values and interests of the companies.

The theoretical importance of this study lies in showing more of the dynamics of commitment within a project, how it develops and what the means are to influence these dynamics. Not much research has been done on that until now. Moreover, it will add to the social learning perspective by focusing on the part of commitment as a process that changes over time and that can be influenced to restore the commitment when it is lacking. This study can serve to help researchers understand the dynamics of commitment and the means that are available to influence these dynamics.

The managerial relevance of this research lies in having an overview of how commitment can evolve in a consortium and how this can be influenced. This research uses a solution-oriented approach by looking at the tools and means available to influence this evolvement. A lack of commitment affects the likelihood of success of large scale consortia. It is inevitable that at some point a partner in these large-scale consortia will show a lack of commitment and thus far it has been unclear what can be done to restore the commitment. This study will offer knowledge on the process of commitment and the means to restore commitment. This contributes to optimizing this form of cooperation and preventing failure, which is important since innovation consortia often focus on societal topics and are subsidized with funds.

The paper is structured as follows: the next chapter reviews the existing literature on

Theoretical framework

A consortium is an agreement to work together. It involves several partners jointly working on conducting a project which brings together a diverse set of resources and perspectives, which causes a high potential for synergies and innovation (Doz, Olk and Ring 2000). The most frequent motivations for pursuing a consortium are the access to subsidies and partners’ complementary technologies and scientific and technical capabilities, and to control spillover effects of innovative activities and to achieve economies of scale and scope in search between partners (Doz et al., 2000; Sinanovic and Kumaranayake, 2010).

Public-private partnerships are very often used and a relevant form of R&D alliances that stimulate innovation (Bishop, D’Este and Neely 2011; Du, Leten and Vanhaverbeke, 2014). They provide an opportunity to benefit from collaborative innovation, and attain and integrate scientific with practical knowledge (Eisner et al., 2009; Zhang, Wan, Jia and Gu, 2009). The creation of knowledge is central to such partnerships, because public parties often have a mission to develop basic research knowledge, as well as industry-specific knowledge when cooperating with a private partner. In a partnership between solely profit-seeking firms this tendency to share relevant information is lower because profitability is at stake; there is the risk that the partner becomes a competitor and steals knowledge that may cause the firm to lose its competitive advantage (Santoro, 2000). Public-private partnerships benefit from the dissimilarities in knowledge and therefore have a high innovative potential. It is most beneficial for the R&D of parties to cooperate with a partner that is not too similar with regards to their knowledge base, but that offers complementarities (Noseleit and De Faria, 2013). The complementarities of the partners offer promising synergies and a valuable opportunity for innovation (Bishop et al., 2011). The downside is that there are also negative dissimilarities between public and private companies, which relate to the difference in

agree on goals and deadlines (Cyert and Goodman, 1997). Commitment is therefore essential to making these partnerships successful and achieving that will be more difficult and complex for multilateral cooperation than for bilateral cooperation (Cullen, Johnson and Sakano, 2000).

Project commitment in public-private partnerships

Commitment is “a durable desire to conserve a valued relationship” (Morgan and Hunt, 1994, p. 23). When the commitment of the exchange partner is high, this has a positive influence on the success of an alliance, because it indicates that the party believes that the alliance is important, and that it will put effort in what is needed to maintain the project and achieve its goals. When a firm puts more time, money and shares, facilities and other resources in the partnership this will likely solve possible issues faster and it will create reciprocity with the partner, such that this partner is also more likely to share its resources (Cullen et al., 2000; Hoegl, Weinkauf and Gemuenden, 2004; Monczka, Petersen, Handfield and Ragatz, 1998). This reciprocity remains high when there is mutual commitment and this in turn holds the relationship togetther (Cullen et al., 2000).

Emergence of commitment

There are several factors which have been found to influence the commitment of partners. Barczak and McDonough (2003) mention that commitment can be built through a common purpose and goals, through confidence in the expertise and skills of the team members and by giving team members more responsibility and decision-making authority. They state that high levels of trust also build commitment. Especially when team members have high expectations that other team members will do their job well and work toward common goals, they will be more likely to have a positive attitude towards the project and demonstrate a stronger

involvement. On the other hand, when team members feel that the other team members are not competent, are not willing to take responsibility for their tasks, and are not team players, then these team players will not be willing to put in the necessary effort, involvement or energy that is needed to effectively complete the project (Barckzak and McDonough, 2003).

Dissolving of commitment

over time and suddenly drop (Sol et al., 2013). When commitment decreases, a partner might not respond to the requests of the other partners anymore, or will possibly even terminate the relationship (Morgan and Hunt, 1994). Such a drop in commitment can be noticed when the partner firm appears less passionate and motivated for the project, as well as when the partner starts investing less resources, like time and money (Sol et al., 2013). The consequences of the dissolving of commitment can be severe; other partners might also lower their

commitment, goals within the consortium may not be met, which may even lead that the consortium fails to reach its goals (Hoegl et al., 2004).

Restoring commitment; lessons learned from restoring trust

Despite that the commitment literature has identified the antecedents of commitment,

describes the role of commitment for project success, and the negative consequences of a lack of commitment (Barczak and McDonough, 2003; Cullen et al., 2000, Hoegl et al., 2004), the literature has not yet identified how to repair commitment in case it drops below acceptable levels (Dalela, 2009). Given that the literature between trust and commitment are intertwined (Morgan and Hunt, 1994), this study borrows from the trust literature describing how trust can be repaired. Both trust and commitment are recognized as essential ingredients for successful long-term relationships. What is conceptually different between the constructs is that trust is a perception of the partners’ reliability and integrity, while commitment is a desire to maintain a relationship with the partner which expresses itself in several manners (Garbarino and Johnson, 1999). The lessons learned from the stream of literature on trust repair may provide valuable insights on the repairing of commitment.

When there is a decline in trust, the partner which is the recipient of the violation can respond by either terminating, renegotiating or restoring the relationship (Lewicki and Bunker, 1996). Both the violating partner, as well as the violated partner need to invest in this process to maintain or restore the relationship; that is, a mutual investment is required and single efforts are less effective in restoring the relationship. Both partners need to be willing to put in time, they need to realize that the relationship has short and long-term benefits that are worth the investment and there must be no alternatives to satisfy the needs fulfilled in this relationship (Lewicki and Bunker, 1996).

accept responsibility of the effects of the action. The violated partner needs to engage in the same steps in order to overcome this violation. It does so by recognizing that the act was indeed a violation, attribute the act to the violator and ascribe the motive to him/her and if the violator does not want to accept responsibility, then the violated partner will not engage in rebuilding trust. After this stage, the victim offers or violator requests some form of forgiveness. The violator can request forgiveness by indicating the awareness of what has been done and apologizing, as an expression of emotional regret. Besides a verbal apology, there is also the option to give a symbolic gesture of apology or a public apology.

Afterwards there are many different actions that can be taken, but there are four alternative courses of trust reconstruction: either the victim refuses to accept any actions for

reestablishing the relationship, the victim forgives the violator but asks for unreasonable acts of reparation, the victim forgives and needs no further acts of reparation or the victim forgives and asks for reasonable acts of reparation (Lewicki and Bunker, 1996).

Bachmann, Gillespie and Priem (2015) identify six mechanisms to repair trust, including: sense making, the relational approach, regulation and formal control, ethical culture and informal control, transparency and accountability and trust transference. Sense making involves establishing a shared understanding of what happened, how and why, which is a collective learning process; thus performed by both the violator as well as by the violated party. The relational approach involves enacting social rituals and symbolic acts like an apology or voluntary or involuntary punishments or penance. Regulation and formal control can come in the form of laws, rules, codes of conduct or sanctions. Ethical culture and informal control is about developing a strong ethical culture to repair trust. Transparency and accountability implies that the partner that broke the trust needs to disclose all relevant information. Lastly, trust transference suggests that when the party that broke the trust is endorsed by a trusted agency it can repair trust in that way. Similar aspects are expected to play a role in the repair of commitment.

distinction, this study focuses on the multilateral relationship between public and private companies and looks at the means to repair.

Table 1 Current studies on trust and commitment repair

Concept focus Relationship focus Public-private Means to repair Bachmann, Gillespie and Priem, 2015

Trust repair Bilateral Public and private

Yes

Lewicki and Bunker, 1996

Trust repair Bilateral Interpersonal Yes

Barczak and McDonough, 2003

Commitment antecedents

Bilateral Public and private No Cullen, Johnson and Sakano, 2000 Commitment and trust consequences Multilateral Public No

This study Commitment repair

Multilateral Public-private Yes

Methodology

What is lacking in research is an investigation of how the commitment in public-private innovation consortia can be restored (when it is lacking). Since this phenomenon has not yet been addressed in literature and has come up as an important problem in many of these collaborations, a theory development approach is suitable for this research (Van Aken, Berends and Van der Bij, 2012). In order to develop new theory, a case study was performed to gather empirical evidence on the phenomenon (Van Aken et al., 2012). The case study uses several sources to analyze the same phenomenon. A case study is a good way to provide a description, as well as to build theory (Eisenhardt, 1989). This research followed the process of building theory from case studies as described by Eisenhardt (1989).

Case selection

This study selected a large public-private innovation consortium in the healthcare sector, namely a consortium of the Universitair Medisch Centrum Groningen (UMCG) and 6 other partner firms. For confidentiality, the consortium will be referred to as HealthConsort. This consortium consists of 6 partner firms and 1 firm which focuses on supporting the Project Coordinator in managing the consortium. The firms are both public and private firms, which focus on finding a successful treatment for cardiovascular disease. Of the 7 partners, 4 are academic and 3 are private (including one supporting firm). Also, the firms are situated in different European countries. The project consists of 7 work packages and each work package has a different composition of partner firms participating. Each work package has a project leader, about 3 partners, and contains specific goals and deliverables.

This study relies on theoretical sampling, which implies that the case was chosen for

subsidized project is that partners are forced to be transparent, which increases the access to project-related and other secondary information. Another factor that made the access to relevant data easier was that the project was still running at the time of the interviews. This facilitates access to the partners as their commitment is still present. Moreover, taking interviews after the consortium finished would require having to rely on the memory of the interviewees, which can make the results less reliable (Eisenhardt, 1989).

Even though the project of HealthConsort exists of seven work packages, it was decided to treat the whole consortium as one case instead of taking the individual work packages as several cases. This was decided because it was found during the interviews that all the work packages were very dependent of each other, making it impossible to disentangle the activities that were held for each corresponding work package. There is a great interdependency

between the work packages and the failure of one work package could easily result from the failure of a prior work package. Besides, it would be hard to define a work package as being successful or unsuccessful since the partner firms do not have a clear separation of activities between these work packages. The respondents perceived the activities for the different work packages as being part of one project: HealthConsort.

Data collection

Several data collection methods were used to collect the data. For primary data collection interviews were held and observations (during side visits of the interviewees) were done. These interviews were largely retrospective, but they also included questions on the current situation and thoughts on the future. For secondary data collection, documents were studied that were provided by the partners in the consortium, or were searched for by the researchers. By using multiple types of data collection, triangulation is possible, which provides stronger validation of constructs (Eisenhardt, 1989).

Interviews

he was not the official PI. He was interviewed though because he fulfilled the tasks of a PI. These key informants were chosen because they determine the strategic choices for the firm, they are responsible for the results and they steer firm actions. Also, these informants are the basis of the communication between the partner firms. For UMCG, it was also decided to interview additional informants involved in the consortium, including PhDs and post-docs who conduct the research. The easy access to the staff of UMCG, the project leader, was facilitated by the project coordinator, who introduced the researchers to this lower level staff. This interviewing of lower level staff was done in order to get a better overall view of how the consortium performs and how this is viewed at different levels. The advantage of interviewing lab employees is that they know more about the day to day work and the implementation, as well as problems occurring on a lower level. Project leaders might know less about these issues. This multi-level approach is useful to create a richer picture of the dynamics between partners. Respondent reliability was controlled for by interviewing high level staff, as well as lower level staff because this gives a balanced mixture of perspectives. The circumstance reliability was increased by conducting the interviews at different moments in time, but it was made sure to conduct all interviews within 3 months to prevent large differences in

commitment (Yin, 2003). By performing the interviews before the end of the project, they became a combination of retrospective views on past actions, as well as views on the current situation and possible developments in the nearby future. The memories about what happened in the earlier stages of the consortium are still fresh and there is little distortion. Also,

perceptions and attitudes towards commitment were comparable in timing across interviewees (Eisenhardt, 1989).

In total, 19 interviews were conducted, see table 2. The researchers interviewed at least one person per partner, while for the project leader, interviews with 6 people were held. Follow-up interviews were held with the project coordinator and the project manager to discuss some of the findings from the other interviews.

Table 2 Overview interviews

Interview nr.

Partner firm Role of interviewee(s) Interview details

3 Firm 1 (public) Project manager and project coordinator

Face to face, 70 minutes

4 Firm 1 (public) Postdoc Face to face, 62 minutes

5 Firm 1 (public) Technician Face to face, 62 minutes 6 Firm 1 (public) Project manager Face to face, 78 minutes 7 Firm 6 (public) PhD student Face to face, 41 minutes 8 Firm 1 (public) Work package leader Face to face, 73 minutes

9 Firm 1 (public) Postdoc Face to face, 62 minutes

10 Firm 5 (public) Work package leader who is in practice also the PI

Face to face, 42 minutes

11 Firm 5 (public) Functions in practice as co-PI Face to face, 57 minutes 12 Firm 3 (private) Principal investigator Skype, 67 minutes 13 Firm 2 (private) 2 technicians Skype, 42 minutes

14 Firm 7

(management)

Project consultant Skype, 50 minutes

15 Firm 4 (public) 2 technicians Skype, 67 minutes 16 Firm 1 (public) PhD student Face to face, 23 minutes 17 Firm 1 (public) Project manager Face to face, 62 minutes 18 Firm 1 (public) Project coordinator Face to face, 65 minutes 19 Firm 6 (public) Principal investigator/work

package leader

Telephone call, 55 minutes

Protocol

To ensure that the same and the most essential information was gathered from the different interviews, an interview protocol was set up and consistently applied to all interviews (see appendix 1). The protocol was semi-structured, adjusted slightly depending on the

interviewee’s role in the project, and whether the interviewee worked at a private or a public firm. This protocol was used as a guideline, but when needed adjusted to the different background and knowledge of the interviewees at hand. Also, the protocol for the follow-up interviews was different in order to retrieve clarification on certain aspects of the project.

All interviews were recorded with permission of the interviewees and afterwards transcribed. The transcripts were then send back to the interviewees. The interviewees could check if the transcript was an adequate representation of the interview and whether the information shared was understood correctly by the researchers. This helped increase the reliability of the data (De Groot, 1969; Van Aken et al., 2012).

Measures

Several questions in the structured part of the interviews concerned commitment. Items derived from validated scales were used to define some questions that could measure the commitment of partner firms. The scale used was the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, which measures commitment by measuring the relative strength of involvement with the consortium by the consortium partner (Mowday, Steers and Porter 1979). Besides this, the questions regarding to the commitment of the partner were a delicate issue. Even though confidentiality was guaranteed, a lot of trust from the interviewee was needed to answer questions about this and therefore the interviewers chose to focus on the interviewees’ view of the commitment of the other partners and they asked about the vision of the partners own commitment in a covert manner. To increase instrument validity,

Based on the first meetings with the project coordinator and project manager it became clear from the start that two partners were less committed than the others.

Secondary data

During the interviews with the project coordinator, and occasionally with other interviewees, relevant project documents were asked for to get additional information about the cases (Yin, 2003). The documents included the proposal and the proposal submission forms used to apply for the EU grant. These documents are very extensive, consisting of over 100 pages, and include the goals of the consortium, the responsibilities and the deadlines, the budget, as well as information about the companies and the different work packages (including the

responsible project leaders and project management leader). Also, the researchers searched for additional relevant data, including, amongst others, the websites of the partner firms and of the project and the publications that were related to the project. Also, LinkedIn and company pages were used to gather information about the background of the interviewees before conducting the interviews. This helped to understand their academic background and specialism to be able to conduct the interviews more properly. Besides that, this secondary data was used to verify objectively the commitment of the partners, for example by checking whether they indeed published the most papers through looking at the number of publications.

Case description

The case is a consortium of which the UMCG is the leading partner. Since anonymity has been guaranteed to the participating firms and interviewees, the case description will only include information that cannot be traced back to individuals or firms. The consortium

focuses on a healthcare topic and consists of 7 partner firms, of which 4 firms are public firms and 3 firms are private firms. One of the private firms functions as a supporting project management firm to the project manager, thus taking care of producing, monitoring,

In figure 1 a timeline can be found of the project. A similar timeline has been used during the interviews to gain more information regarding the timing of the project from the interviewees.

Figure 1 Timeline of the HealthConsort project

Data analysis

Following Eisenhardt (1989), first, an analysis was performed for each interview. After the interviews were recorded and transcribed they were analyzed and summarized individually to interpret them separately. The transcribed interviews were around 20 pages each, and were individually summarized into a 2-3-pages summaries that were used to establish patterns (for the bigger picture). More detailed analysis made use of the original interviews, for example for quotes. The secondary data (e.g. EU application documents, public website of the project), were also analyzed and used to gain a better understanding of the project and the interviews. After this, the interviews were compared which helped to find patterns. The different

interviews from both principal investigators (PIs) as well as other staff helped to look at the data in different ways. A comparison between the interviews of the different partners,

Results

This chapter starts with whether respondents find commitment important for project success and how they define commitment. It also discusses the perception of the partners of their own commitment and each other’s commitment. After that, the development of commitment within the consortium is looked at, using three idealized stages that partners can go through; the emergence of commitment, followed by either sustained commitment or

dissolving/lacking commitment and lastly the restoring of commitment. This results in a process model based on the findings and a model with the factors related to commitment repair. The differences between private and public partners are explored throughout the chapter.

Different meaning for commitment depending on respondent roles

Lack of commitment is mentioned by several partners as a big issue in large-scale consortia. It is seen as something that is very important for the project, since this will create an optimal cooperation that enables the best results. The analysis of the respondent interviews reveals that there are common features to what the interviewees perceive as demonstrating

commitment, like doing more than expected, showing sincere interest in partners and

communicating openly and truthfully. Some of these common features have also been named in the literature on commitment (Cullen et al., 2000; Hoegl et al., 2004; Monczka, 1998). Furthermore, the analysis demonstrates that how individuals perceive and define commitment is determined by their functional role within the project. Major differences appear between the role of the interviewee and his/her interpretation of commitment. The project manager, for example, focuses more on aspects relevant to her function, like communicating when not being able to meet deadlines so measures can be taken in time, while a PI puts more focus on commitment as sharing all knowledge and results. Table 3 provides an overview of the different roles of the people interviewed and how they viewed commitment in general. It can clearly be seen that the higher ranked an interviewee is, the more abstract the contribution is that he/she expects from a partner in order to be considered committed.

Table 3 Role of interviewees and their definition of commitment.

Role Definitions of commitment

partners, dedicating sufficient time to the consortium, being honest, having open communication, having a dedicated contact person, doing more than just the deliverables, keeping your promises, admitting others can do things better than you, being involved in writing the proposal and being aware of what is in the proposal

Project manager Commitment is more than meeting deadlines. Commitment is a partner that is open for communication and questions, that meets deadlines and communicates when he can’t, that can be trusted, that has soft skills and that shares his data with partners

Principal investigators of

public partners Commitment is doing more than the minimum, investing enough time, not working on too many projects, doing things that are not directly useful for your own institute, trusting your partners and responding enthusiastically to requests

Principal investigators of private companies

Commitment is doing more than the basics that are on paper, showing interest in the partners, sharing all results, trusting the other partners and putting the project high on your priority list

Technicians Commitment is having good communication, sharing more than might be strictly part of the project, having trust in each other, doing more than the minimum, being interactive during meetings, being intrinsically interested in the project and visiting partners to explain methods and findings Postdocs Commitment is doing more than necessary, not staying on

your own little island and jumping in on ideas of other partners

PhD students When you can see from the data during meetings that a partner has worked intensively and it shows from the results

Differences between project coordinators and project managers

The project coordinator and the project manager each have their own tasks within the

Leading versus executing roles

What can be seen as a clear difference is how PhD students look at the commitment compared to the other roles. They believe that one can judge the commitment of the partners by looking at the results and data that they show, for example during the annual meetings, where each partner presents its progress. They base the level of commitment on the level of output. For the PhD students, this is often the only way in which they have contact with the partners, since they do not frequently interact with them in their daily work. For the respondents in higher and more coordinating roles this is different. They focus on what a partner firm puts into the project and is willing to share with others and believe that this does not always have to lead to great data since science is unpredictable. They look at the process that the partners went through as well, instead of merely focusing on results. This in turn also influences how they see their own commitment.

Public versus private partners

Based on the distinctions made in the literature between the drivers of public and private partner firms, different perceptions were expected to be found regarding commitment as well. When comparing the opinions of the interviewees from public and private partners though, there were a lot of similarities. Both types of partners agree that when one party commits that it prioritizes the task to ensure the party has the time available to work on the project. A difference that could be found though was that for the PIs of the public partners, the focus was that a committed partner would also work on things not directly useful for themselves, while the PIs of private partners focused more on showing interest in the partners and seeking actively for cooperation and sharing all the results.

Different perceptions of own commitment versus partners’ perception

Table 4 Perceived own commitment and how the other partners perceive their commitment

Partner Perceived own

commitment How others perceive their commitment

Firm 1 Very committed

“I tried my best within all the constraints that I mentioned. “ (employee Firm 1)

Firm 6: very committed Firm 5: committed Firm 3: very committed Firm 4: very committed Firm 2: very committed

Firm 5 Committed- given the role

of being a participating firm and not the project leader and given the output (in number of publications) generated for the project “But if you look at the number of publications that have gone out with a HealthConsort label. I think that, I am actually sure, together with Copenhagen, that that is the longest list.” (employee firm 5)

Firm 1: were from the start not committed, but they are increasingly committed towards the end of the project.

Firm 6: does not seem very committed

Firm 3: could have been more committed

Firm 4 Committed, but that was

hard in the beginning “Let’s say it was not always easy” (to stay committed) (employee firm 4)

Firm 1: were from the start not committed, but they are increasingly committed towards the end of the project

Firm 6: not committed till the point of the interview, might increase

Firm 5: were from the start not committed, but they are increasingly committed towards the end of the project

Firm 3: were from the start not committed, but they are increasingly committed towards the end of the project

Firm 6 Very committed

“I have been very involved from the beginning already” (employee firm 6)

Firm 1: committed Firm 3: committed

“We proposed a preliminary analysis even before the proposal” (employee firm 3)

Firm 5: low commitment, since they do not respond to requests

Firm 6: very committed

Firm 2 Committed

“We offered a workshop for other partners to make them interested” (employee firm 2)

Firm 1: very committed Firm 5: relatively committed

Firm 7 Committed

“We are usually taking the initiative to send an action plan of all the tasks we have to” (employee firm 7)

Firm 1: committed

Firm 5: committed, without them it would not have been possible to focus on the scientific work

Own commitment

In general, the partners described themselves as being either committed or very committed to the project and to the partners participating in the consortium. They would demonstrate this by mentioning the output (i.e. papers that they had published or were in the process of submitting) or by mentioning that they met all their deliverables. Only firm 4 mentioned that it was hard to stay committed in the beginning because for them the results came very late in the project, but they mentioned that they still managed to be committed.

Perceived commitment by other partners

Interviewees were also asked to express how they perceived the commitment of the partner firms. They only expressed their opinion about partners that they cooperated with or when they had strong arguments for this opinion. Besides that, some interviewees did not want to name partners who lacked commitment to the project because they did not think that it was appropriate to talk negatively about partners. This might have also been caused by a desire to keep a good relationship with the partner for possible future cooperation since the same partners tend to work together on projects more often.

When comparing those that have been evaluated, we see that all partners were very

that the coordinator could take more initiative in seeking contact. Besides that, firm 5 did not appreciate the communication style of the project coordinator; it gave them the impression that they were considered sub-contractors instead of partners. With regards to firm 5 and firm 4, all responding partners agreed that they lacked commitment to a certain extent from the beginning on and only very recently started to commit more to the project. For firm 6 and firm 7 the partners that worked with them see them as committed. From the interview with firm 6 it is known that they had to drop part of their milestone since the proposal was too optimistic. This has not been perceived as a lack of commitment though as they were honest about it and worked hard on the remainder of their milestone.

When looking at the private partners, firm 3 and firm 2, there is a distinction of what firm 5 mentions about these partners and how the other partners perceive them. Firm 5 ranks them lower on commitment than the others do. Firm 5 argues that firm 3 does not respond when they ask for something, even though it would be easy for them to check it for firm 5, and consequently firm 3 does ask for more targets during the annual meetings. With regards to firm 2, they state that this party delivers the minimum of what was expected and nothing more than that. The other parties that discussed these two private partners are more positive and state that the parties feel like working with academics and that they have a strong academic connection with them. Overall, it can clearly be noticed that all partners consider UMCG as the most committed partner, since as a project leader, they put in most time and are most visible. This commitment may result from the responsibility that the project coordinator has. One of the interviewees of firm 5 stated that: “I also have personal grants (..) that feels different (..) I want to give it 180 percent.” He believes that there is a difference in commitment when you are responsible for the project. This clear difference between the UMCG and the other partners, makes that the partners are more critical about the commitment of the non-UMCG partners. These partners will never live up to the performance of the

UMCG.

In table 5 these outcomes of the perceived level of commitment are summarized into three levels of commitment; a high level of commitment, an average level of commitment and partners with the lowest level of commitment.

Table 5 Perceived level of commitment per partner by other partners

Lowest level of commitment Firm 5 and firm 4

Average level commitment Firm 3, firm 2, firm 7 and firm 6

High level commitment Firm 1

Signs that were mentioned as a clear sign of a lack of commitment were, amongst others, withholding important information, not delivering on what was promised in the proposal, postponing tasks, no clear signs of progress during the annual meetings and not answering to requests to share information.

Misperception of own perceived commitment and partners' opinions about commitment Since all partners considered themselves as being sufficiently committed to the project and to their partners, this table shows that misperceptions may exist between the commitment that partners perceive of themselves and what other partners perceive that they show. Especially with firm 5 and firm 4 there is a big difference, they reflect on themselves as being much more committed than their partners feel about them. Interestingly for these partners the original PIs could not be interviewed, which can be viewed as an indication of their lack of commitment. An explanation for this misperception might be found in the differences between the definition of commitment that the interviewees gave. When partners have different ideas about what commitment is, they also judge each other’s commitment differently.

Commitment process model

commitment of a partner throughout all phases. These findings together result in a process model of commitment.

Emergence of commitment

When a project coordinator wants to respond to a grant call it needs to find partners that are suitable for the project and will convince the body that awards the grant that the project will succeed. The choice for these partners is often based on previous experience with the partners, requirements of the body that awards the grant and the scientific value of the partners.

Commitment of the partners is not taken into consideration specifically, but since partners are often known to the coordinator, they might implicitly be aware of it and they know they can trust the partners. Also, the partners are selected based on their suitability to the project, resources at hand and complementarity with partners, which implies that they will find benefits in joining and thus be committed. Below the means that were most important to the interviewees to stimulate the emergence of commitment are listed.

Involve partners with writing the proposal

After the partners have been approached, the proposal gets written. The coordinator writes this proposal, which includes, amongst others, the deliverables and milestones that each partner needs to deliver. In the case of HealthConsort the management partner helped to write the proposal. Since the coordinator operates in the same field as the partners, he is able to write the parts of the partners in the consortium as well. After writing the proposal, the

partners were asked for feedback and approval. The coordinator wrote the proposal very close to the deadline and experienced that almost no feedback was given by the partners. A

writing the proposal is that it is more difficult for them to immediately find important benefits for themselves.

The project coordinator indicated that he felt annoyed by the feeling that some of the people in the partner firms did not bother to read the proposal and were therefore not aware of what was expected of them. This influenced his perception of their commitment and gave him an indication of the relatively low involvement of the partners.

Lastly, the private partners were not as familiar with the field as the academic partners, but they mentioned that the clarity of the proposal helped them understand what was expected of them. Their tasks were relatively simple and standard, therefore this did not create issues of commitment. The private partners were expected to primarily be happy with the monetary rewards of participating in the project.

Therefore, being involved in writing the proposal can influence the emergence of commitment with partners, as well as affect the feasibility of the deliverables, which

influences the perceived commitment later on in the project, when deliverables might not be met.

Set up of project

In the next step of the proposal, the set-up of the project is arranged. It takes a lot of effort to make changes in the project proposal after the grant has been granted and therefore it is important to start off right. Several aspects of how the project was set-up and the influence of that on commitment were mentioned.

The set-up of the project determines the order in which the deliverables take place. The HealthConsort is a project which is sequentially ordered. One partner, or a group of partners, comes with results and another partner follows up on them. This creates dependence to a certain extent since partners are dependent on another partner. It also requires coordination and mutual investment. Since partners operate sequentially there is a reduced amount of back and forth sharing of information, most communication of results is one way. Often one

also compared this consortium to another consortium that she participated in. This other consortium did not operate sequentially and according to the firm 5 interviewee this improved the group feel. Appendix 2 shows the difference between the set-up of a sequential and a non-sequential project. Also, the partners that are ‘last in line’ do not get any benefits until very late in the project and are not expected to deliver something, like firm 4 mentioned. They might therefore feel less urge to commit early on in the project, since value can be perceived as limited.

Therefore, partners that did not establish mutual dependency with other partners might not have developed commitment from the beginning of the project. Besides that, partners that are ‘last in line’ also are more likely to not develop commitment from the beginning of the project. This is because they feel less involved with the project and will therefore prioritize projects that they do feel committed to.

Kick off meeting

A last means to influence the emergence of commitment from the start of the project is the kick off meeting. The coordinator and the granting body decide on the requirements for this and for this meeting to actually take place. The project manager thinks it is one of the most important parts of the project to get everyone on board, and to make sure that there is a shared understanding of the aims and deadlines. Without this initial stage, partners would not be fully aware of the interconnectedness of the partners and how the goals of the project can be

achieved together.

With regards to attendance, it is valuable to have the EU officer present at the meeting, according to the project manager. This officer can tell what is expected of the partners and can clearly share the rules of conduct with the consortium. This potentially emphasizes the importance of the project to the partners and thus can stimulate the emergence of

commitment.

In terms of content, this kick-off primarily focused on the academic part of the project, which is important for the partners to get to know the contribution and relevance of the other

Development of commitment after first phase

After this first phase, the partners had a lot of freedom (autonomy) to work on their deliverables and the perceived dependency on other partners was relatively low. Since the partners did not yet depend on each other, they were consequently less aware of the commitment of the other partners. Only later on in the project, when partners needed each other for results, did they start perceiving the commitment of partners or lack thereof. This is also applicable to the project coordinator, since the deliverables started increasing later on in the project. Because of this, it would be harder for the project coordinator to measure whether commitment is present with partners.

Therefore, only after some years it became evident which partners had committed from the beginning and which partners were lacking. The two partners that showed a clear lack of commitment were firm 5 and firm 4, these partners held back results (sometimes

deliberately), did not show progress during annual meetings and were often not willing to work on results found by other partners. The following sections will discuss the means available to sustain the commitment of partners and consequently the reasons for a continued lack of commitment or the start of the dissolving of commitment.

Sustained commitment Coordinator visits

Contact between partners

Creating a sense of a team effort and a need to cooperate helps partners commit to the

consortium. This needs to be sustained throughout the project though. Keeping in touch does not only happen during the greatly appreciated annual meetings, but can be done in several ways. Exchanges of personnel have taken place between the partners and this gave a boost to the cooperation between partners as they learn more about each other and gain scientific knowledge. By gaining a better understanding of what the partner is working on, it will be easier to assess its commitment. These exchanges of personnel help to show the gratitude of the partner for the relation because they invest manpower and it makes it easier to discuss what the partners need from each other when they can discuss this face to face instead of from a distance.

Another means used to have more contact with the partners was the organizing of workshops. Firm 3, for example, gave a workshop to the whole consortium to show the usefulness of their software. As with the exchanges of personnel, this helps the partners to get a better indication of what firm 3 is working on and how they can be of help to the partners and therefore a better indication of their commitment. Also, it helps create a link between what firm 3 is working on and the use of that for the partners, which can sustain their commitment when it is valuable to them. It can improve the benefits that partners get from cooperating with this partner and therefore partners might become more committed to making that cooperation work.

Results and updates

Additional reasons why partners stay committed is when results are shown and shared. The updates during the annual meetings could spark their enthusiasm. By understanding the use of the consortium and the value of putting in time and resources, partner’s commitment can be sustained. When partners are aware of the results that other partners are achieving they will stay committed to also performing themselves because they see the added value of that.

Sustained lack of commitment and dissolved commitment

A partner firm can also sustain its lack of commitment during the project or the commitment that was there at the beginning of the project can dissolve. This section looks at the

the beginning of the project and lasted almost until the last 18 months of the project. It can be assumed though that the reasons that were found for sustaining a lack of commitment can also be the reasons of why commitment would dissolve.

Previous experience

A lot of partners know each other prior to the consortium, as they have worked in consortia in the past, and have been a mentor or PhD supervisor of others. Whereas knowing each other can be positive for the commitment to the project, it can also make it harder to correct each other when a lack of commitment is experienced. Negative previous experiences can also have a harmful effect on the potential current and future commitment of a partner. Several sources mentioned that they thought that the lack of commitment by one partner was caused by bad experiences in the past where partner firms could not be trusted. Due to this

experience, a partner might have not wanted to take this risk again and therefore does not fully commit out of protectionism.

Results

Getting promising results is a great boost for a partner, but when the partner is mainly responsible for deliverables at the end of the project or when the results are disappointing in fulfilling the needs and goals of the partner, it is hard to stay committed to a project.

Therefore, the set-up of the project and the results of the science in the project can have a big effect on the commitment.

Priorities

Restoring of commitment

A lack of commitment from one or more partners can hurt the results of the project and influence the commitment of other partners. Therefore, it is important to restore commitment during the project. Several interviewees indicated that they had hoped that partners would increase their commitment, because it would help increase the value of their results and the probability of success.

Awareness of lack of commitment

A lack of commitment was especially noticed when a partner was needed to deliver results. When this partner would respond negatively to a request, when the partner would take very long to verify results or would only verify part of the requested data, then it would be perceived as lacking commitment. Most partners mentioned that they would give up when a partner was not committed or that they called in the help of the coordinator. In general, the partner believed that the coordinator was responsible for restoring the commitment of partners. Since a lack of commitment by any partner would influence the success of the project, the coordinator would respond to these calls for help, but mostly the coordinator was already aware of the lack of commitment, since he has the best overview of the project.

During the interviews several means came up that were used in the project, by the coordinator, to restore commitment. They are discussed below:

Legal means and threats

coordinator refrained from using this severe measures though. The coordinator mentions that making use of this means would be bad for oneself as well, because the partners all have unique capabilities and the punished parties are less likely to cooperate in the future when one makes use of these penalizing means. Therefore, the coordinator stuck to either threatening with the means or hinting towards it more subtly, in order to emphasize that this could be possible consequences of staying uncommitted.

Confrontation

The project coordinator indicated that he used confrontation as a means to restore

commitment with at least one of the partner firms. One way of confronting the partner was by showing a comparison of the partners performance to the performance of other partner firms. This confrontation happened during an annual meeting and it caused such embarrassment with the partner firm 5 that they rapidly started increasing their commitment. Part of the confrontation was that firm 5 had to present their findings, like all the other partners. It became clear then to the other partners that firm 5 did not make progress from the last meeting. Also, the coordinator talked in person to the firm 5 representative about its lack of progress. The coordinator mentioned that: “ (firm 5) thinks that everyone was doing a lousy job, but actually the others did quite well. And then that was a huge discrepancy. (..) he felt embarrassed.” Another way that the coordinator used confrontation to restore commitment was by calling or visiting the partner firm, who is slacking, and emphasizing that they were not living up to their promises. For firm 4, the coordinator believes that his continuous visits and interactions caused an increase in commitment. This might have been due to reciprocity, because it takes a lot of effort from the coordinator to visit and interact with the partner and this can stimulate them to also put in more effort. As the coordinator mentioned: “I have been pushing them (firm 4). So if I didn’t do this by paying visits (..) nothing would have

happened.”

Mediator

In the HealthConsort the project coordinator made use of a friend, who was a mutual friend of the project coordinator and the party that lacked commitment, that acted as a mediator

with both parties. When it becomes hard for the coordinator to get through to the partner firm and to make an impact, it can be wise to use a third person that is more neutral and can mediate between the parties. By making use of this party, commitment can be increased and obstacles overcome.

Staff exchange

Also for the restoring of commitment, staff exchange was seen as an important means. This is the only means which was not initiated directly by the project coordinator. Visits were made to several partners to learn what these partners were working on, how they work, to ask questions and to get to know each other personally. All these visits were unplanned at the start of the project as they were not addressed in the official project description, but they were very useful, as partners became more appreciative of the work of the partners and thus more

committed to the project. One employee of the UMCG in particular believes that the visits back and forth between her and firm 4 have to do with the increased commitment of this partner. Through these visits, the added benefit of cooperation could be perceived by the partner and through trust commitment was built.

The restoration of commitment from firm 5 and firm 4 was noticed by their partners when they started sharing more results, showed enthusiasm and caught up with the tasks that they still had to fulfill. What can be noticed here though is that the restoration of firm 4 is

appreciated more than that of the firm 5 because they are more valuable to the project. Firm 5 is considered to be ‘too late’ with their restoration of trust, while the partners are very pleased with firm 4contributing more.

Antecedents of commitment

There are several antecedents that influence all stages of the process. Interviewees were asked to compare the project to other projects they had participated in. Below, the most important aspects that are mentioned by the interviewees that influence and shape the level of

commitment and the difficulty of maintaining and repairing commitment.

Number of partners involved in the project

is less money available per partner and the personal goals of each partner will differ more greatly, to such an extent that it is harder to cooperate. Also, the level of freeriding increases with the number of partners and it will be harder to coordinate the project. When there is a low number of partners there could be expertise missing which is necessary for a good performance and every partner firm needs to invest a lot of time in the project. A perfect size according to several interviewees was around 3 to 7 partners.

Distance between partners

Another factor often mentioned was the distance between the partners. This consortium worked with partners from all over Europe and respondents indicated that due to busy schedules, it is not easy to meet up or visit each other. Face to face contact is very beneficial for a cooperation and misunderstandings can be prevented or quickly resolved, but this is very hard to accomplish when being located far apart from each other. Tacit knowledge is hard to share when not meeting in person and this influences the learning potential. The appreciation of face to face contact, and the preference of that over Skype and such, was shown through the partners flying in for ultra-short, less than one day, meetings.

Leadership style coordinator

Process model on commitment repair

Based on the previous paragraphs a process model has been constructed, which can be found in figure 2. The first part of the process model shows the means that were used to create commitment with partners from the beginning on. When these means are implemented well, it is less likely that commitment will continue to lack or will dissolve. Whether these means are effective depends on the influence of the antecedents below in the model. These antecedents affect the receptiveness of the partner for the means to emerge commitment. When the partner is not influenced by these antecedents its commitment will emerge from the beginning. To sustain this commitment, several means are given. Consequently, there are firms that continue to lack commitment and, primarily, the project coordinator has several means available to address this and restore the commitment. This can lead to a restored commitment or a continued unrestored commitment.

Model of factors of commitment repair

Based on the results a second model has also been constructed, which can be seen in figure 3. This model shows the factors that influence whether a lack of commitment will appear. As mentioned before, there are factors that will contribute to a lack of commitment, which are factors like the distrust in the capabilities of the partner and a lack of clarity on the project goals. A factor that will decrease the lack of commitment is a high expected benefit to participating and cooperating in the project. A lack of commitment can be identified by the project coordinator, by other partners or by the violator itself. This can happen for example when a deliverable had been promised to be delivered at a specific moment or when another partner tells the project coordinator. When this lack of commitment is identified, that can be expressed for example by telling this partner. This can consequently lead to an improved commitment or a continued lack of commitment. When there is a continued lack of

Discussion and conclusion

The literature on commitment focuses on the importance of commitment for the success of public-private innovation consortia and the antecedents of commitment, but less is known about how commitment can be restored (Cullen et al., 1995; Das and Rahman, 2009). Since consortia have a high failure rate (Dacin et al., 1997; Harrigan 1988; Kogut 1988), and lack of commitment is considered a major reason for failure (Dorsch et al., 1998), it is important though to pay attention to this. This research responded to that lack of research by looking at the restoration of commitment through a case study. Firstly, a distinction has been made between several idealized phases of commitment throughout the consortium. Secondly, means are given that influence the emergence of, sustainment of and restoring of commitment within such a consortia. Lastly, antecedents are proposed which cause the continued lacking of commitment and those which have an overall influence on the level of commitment of the partners. This chapter concludes with a discussion about the results of this study compared to the literature about the development of commitment and the literature on the restoring of trust.

Phases of commitment

Several phases of commitment of the partners have been found within the case. Firstly the emergence of commitment, then either the sustainment of this commitment or the sustained lack of this commitment, followed by an attempt to restore the commitment, if still lacking. When comparing this to the literature on the social learning perspective it can be seen that this perspective also sees commitment as a dynamic process (Sol et al., 2013). In the social

learning literature, social learning is seen as an iterative and ongoing process and part of this learning is commitment, as well as mutual trust and shared reframing. Social learning

acknowledges that there is a dynamic interrelation between these aspects, which can increase the learning over time, but changes in one of the aspects can also cause a decrease in learning. After a decrease in learning, parties can focus on one of the aspects though to increase in learning again (Sol et al., 2013).

but it was not experienced as a constant factor of influence. Firm 4 distrusted the other parties due to bad previous experiences, which did cause them to not share all information. Other partners did not mention trust as being of influence to their commitment. What can be the cause of this is that partners talk to each other on a regular basis and therefore they know what the others are working on instead of having to trust on that.

Means available to influence commitment

When comparing the means available to influence commitment with the partners with the available literature, some factors are clearly found. The strategic importance of the project for example is one of the features which influences commitment and the means that can be found in the case study to emphasize are amongst others the visits of the coordinator and the contact with the partners (Cullen et al., 1995; Das and Rahman, 2009). Besides this, the study also reflects on the effect of a common purpose and goals, as mentioned in literature (Barczak and McDonough, 2003). This common purpose and these goals get emphasized during the kickoff meeting and the project coordinator makes his visits to keep the partners aware of them. Another factor that was mentioned in literature as stimulating commitment is giving partners more responsibility and decision-making authority. It could be seen in the case study that there was a lack of this due to the leadership style but also due to the inherent nature of such a project, with the EU setting up rules. That this was mentioned by several partners reinforces the literature. The project coordinator had to consider several aspects when deciding on which means to use. One of these aspects is the power of the partner that is low on commitment. When this partner is of high importance to the project, the means will be focused on keeping a good relationship because the project coordinator does not want to risk losing this partner for the project. Also the shadow of the future plays a role; when this partner might be valuable in the future, the means need to be adjusted to that.

A clear difference can be seen between the types of means available, namely positive and negative means; the carrot and the stick. With carrot, or positive means, means like

Antecedents for a lack of commitment and for commitment during the project The number of partners in a project has been mentioned in literature as a factor which

influences the ease of coordinating a project (Xia et al., 2008). This came back in the findings as well, where interviewees had a clear idea about their ideal number of partners for

coordination and for preventing free-rider behavior. When the right number of partners is involved, this can increase the commitment of the partners because they have more responsibility, but also more (monetary) means. It also makes it easier to coordinate and monitor the partners.

Trust and commitment restoration

In the trust literature, there is much research available on the restoring of trust. Some of the lessons learned from trust could be traced in the means used to restore commitment in this project. It was clear from the findings that restoring commitment takes an effort from two parties, instead of only from the violating party (Lewicki and Bunker, 1996). The violating party clearly needed another partner, in most cases the project coordinator, to confront them with their lack of commitment and sometimes even a third party, the mediator, got involved. Besides that, some of the mechanisms from Bachmann, Gillespie and Priem (2015) to repair trust were found back in the results. Regulation and controls were used by the coordinator to threaten with and this often worked to restore commitment at least to an acceptable level. Besides that, transference was an often-present mechanism, for example by using the mediator to perform the role of the credible party. Transparency was one of the few mechanisms used by partner firms to convince the less committed partners of the use of cooperation. These partners would invite them over to see how they work and what could be their use.

Difference between public and private partners

Literature stated that the large differences in background and aims between public and private partners would make it complex to manage their cooperation (Cyert and Goodman, 1997). The study though found that it was not the public and private firms which had issues with cooperation, but it were rather the public firms amongst each other which experienced

difficulties. This can be explained by the literature on competitive goals (Wong, Tjosvold and Zhang, 2005), which states that if a company believes that the goal achievement of the other partner will negatively influence the opportunity for the company to achieve its own goals, this will lead to conflict. This is more applicable to public partners amongst each other since they operate in the same field of study and can publish in the same journals, while the private companies are both not focused on this field of medical research and mainly use the

consortium as a marketing or endorsement tool. The expected differences which would cause trouble coordinating the consortium were therefore not found. Between the public partners though, the sharing of valuable information that is required to create new knowledge can be hampered by these competing motives.

Theoretical contributions

This research contributes to literature in several ways. Firstly, it has added to the literature on commitment by investigating an area which was underdeveloped, namely the restoration of commitment. Besides that, literature on commitment often focuses on merely two partners in a cooperation, while this study looks a multilateral cooperation through studying a

consortium. It was found thought that often the commitment depends on the bilateral relations within the multilateral cooperation. Repair of commitment mostly comes from the project coordinator and is then focused on an individual partner. Consequently, it adds to the literature on the social learning perspective by investigating one of the factors of social learning, commitment, and seeing how this can be influenced over time.

Managerial contributions