The Power of Heterotopias: Inter-organizational Cooperation as an Experimental Space

Abstract – Given the complex societal tasks organizations are forced to deal with today, inter-organizational relations and cooperation have gained not only increasing importance in organizational practice but also attention in the scientific discourses. This paper aims to contribute to an advanced understanding of the driving forces in inter-organizational initiatives with innovation- and transformation-oriented intentions. A particular focus is placed on experimental spaces that emerge in inter-organizational initiatives, and their influence on inter-organizational acting. This includes “other spaces” that provide the possibility to overcome institutional routines and foster creativity and innovation. Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopias allows us to better understand the significance of such spaces which not only stand outside the regular but also reverse it, and, at the same time, contain it. Against the background of a case study on the establishment of a Lab for innovative forms of education in a Science & Technology Park, the heterotopic character of innovation-oriented experimental spaces is elaborated. We discuss the interference of expectations, emotionality, and tensions between forces to the point of breaking up constraints, as well as forces that stabilize the status quo. Recalling Foucault’s concept allows us to point out the fundamental significance of heterotopias. Linking the concept to organization research enables the development of a multi-dimensional model of experimental spaces that integrates a structural and process-oriented view. It captures the significance of emotional ambivalences for the emerging experimental space and the recursive character of transformational processes. The latter appears to be crucial for establishing and maintaining heterotopic experimental spaces.