Orchestrating collaborative networks for social innovation: Orchestrators' roles in socially innovative initiatives

Collaborative networks for social innovation have been widely studied and reported in literature due to their role in solving social problems. There are still gaps, however, with regard to how such networks are orchestrated, and the roles network leaders must perform to achieve effective outcomes. This paper analyzes how collaborative networks designed to foster social innovation are orchestrated by their members and what roles leaders perform to achieve collective goals. To fulfill this objective, we explored two collaborative networks that have been organized to develop social innovations in Germany. Based on these cases, we show that orchestrators perform several roles to produce social innovation. The most relevant roles are: ‘designing’ - identifying and attracting stakeholders to the initiative; ‘organizing’; and ‘integrating’ each stakeholder's resources; and ‘monitoring’ the activities performed over time. Three orchestration roles not previously presented in the literature emerged as a result of the case analysis: ‘designing’, ‘bridging’, and ‘legitimizing’. Our results also stress that the same collaborative network may require different orchestrators due to the collaboration dynamics and the specific roles that must be performed to achieve the desired outcomes. The paper contributes to both theory and practice by showing which roles network leaders need to perform to orchestrate collaborative networks in order to achieve positive outcomes and develop social innovation.