Damla Diriker from the KIN Center for Digital Innovation has successfully defended her PhD dissertation at the School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy cum laude.
Supervised by Philipp Tuertscher, Amanda Porter, and Mark Boons, Diriker examined how people and organizations can collaborate more effectively on major societal challenges. While collaboration is often presented as the key to innovation, her research shows that many initiatives fall short because collaboration is not properly organized.
Her dissertation demonstrates that successful collaboration requires three elements: a shared understanding of the problem, a careful balance between openness and structure, and linking local solutions to broader systemic goals. When these conditions come together, more sustainable and meaningful results can emerge.
The first study explores how individuals collaborate on online crowdsourcing platforms, using a platform launched at the start of the pandemic to find solutions to COVID-19–related problems as the empirical setting. Diriker shows that contributors consolidate not only around potential solutions, but also around different facets of the problem itself.
The second study investigates the orchestrators of open and collaborative innovation initiatives addressing societal challenges. Drawing on a field study of an ocean sustainability initiative, Diriker develops the idea of punctuated innovation, in which open organizing efforts are intentionally interrupted by moments of temporary closure. These moments facilitate participation and help move collective efforts forward
A further study follows the implementation of ideas generated in an open innovation initiative within a university setting. Here, Diriker shows that misalignment between local and system-level goals can hinder impact scaling—and introduces the concept of distributed alignment, where engagement of local actors helps fit implementation efforts to local needs through the alignment of the innovation and existing practices over time
Across these studies, the dissertation offers practical guidance to organizations and policymakers seeking to address complex societal issues. Diriker highlights that effective collaboration requires both clarity and flexibility, and that tensions between actors or levels are not necessarily obstacles but can become productive moments for learning, adaptation, and renewal.
Diriker will continue her work on collaborative innovation as an Assistant Professor at the KIN Center for Digital Innovation, where she expands her research into the field of energy transition.
