Collaborative innovation in China
IBM’s Innovation Factory is going to be working with China Telecom to set up a research centre in Shanghai. What I find interesting is that the centre will be based around collaborative media and social technology, pulling in knowledge from not just the two partners but also their customers, suppliers and the rest of their extended human networks.
It will be fascinating to see how this works. Much of my experience in China suggests that Chinese employees still tend to be knowledge-hoarders by instinct; the market right now is still lending itself to job-hopping and the search for a better salary above all else, and that encourages talent to try to maintain its value by not sharing. I looked at this for my HRM course at Tsinghua two years ago, and the tendency hasn’t changed.
Sunday, November 11th, 2007
