Initiatives for Multi Cross Industry Innovation: The case of UNIVERSAL HOME

The development of Multi Cross Industry Innovation as a specific form of cross-industry innovation is more and more important in various industries. Many companies have to face the challenges of recent market trends like the continuous blurring of industry boundaries or the increasing complexity of innovations. One option to deal with these challenges is the co-operation across industry boundaries which can lead to Multi Cross Industry Innovation. In order to further investigate this phenomenon, we pose the following question: How do Multi Cross Industry Innovation initiatives emerge and what organizational framework supports the cooperation process in a cross industry network environment? Due to this question, we develop an in-depth case study of UNIVERSAL HOME, a German cross-industry network with one single dominant player. In a first step we present the organization model and specific network characteristics before showing how initiatives were formed and/or emerged in the case. Our findings highlight the support of the participating players´ top managements and the connection between the different network activities and the innovation activities of the participating companies.