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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Collaborative innovation: the decade that radically changed drilling performance

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This article sheds light on key factors associated with innovations that are mainly based on experiential learning. The history of a company engaged in the offshore oil and gas industry exemplifies the points: Hitec started out as a small company with limited financial resources, but over a 10-year period, its innovations and improvements radically transformed offshore oil and gas drilling operations. An evolutionary methodological approach is balanced by theoretically informed analysis. A main finding is that customer–supplier interaction was crucial. Hitec's success, crowned by its eventual acquisition by American capital, can be attributed in part to the know-how and technology provided by one of its suppliers and partners during the early phase. However, it has also depended on a series of other factors: a flexible, motivated and creative organisation; targeting of the right know-how; being part of a cluster and thus enjoying easy access to important customers and suppliers as well as easy, informal f...