Creative Digital Collaboration in Publishing: How do digital collaborative partnerships work and how might publishing companies adapt to facilitate them?

Digital transformation has led to many challenges and opportunities for the book and journal publishing industry. In response, publishers have been developing new apps and websites and expanding their digital portfolios. New product development of this sort is complex and iterative; it requires new ways of working and publishers have been experimenting through collaborative projects. While publishers are experienced at working with people, whether content creators or suppliers, these new collaborations reflect a different approach. They involve working with different sorts of creative individuals and organisations, revealing more clearly how publishing sits within the context of the wider creative industries. This research examines new-style collaborations that experiment with innovative digital formats in order to understand how they work and what publishers can do to facilitate them. It presents an initial survey conducted with industry leaders to examine their approach to digital change and their view of the importance of collaboration. It then takes a case study approach, examining four cases in depth, using interviews, observations and document analysis. The first three cases look at products (a gamebook, an education project and an academic website) to see how collaborations are formed and operate, examining shared characteristics that reflect theories of collaboration and network behaviour. The fourth case explores how collaborative activity can be facilitated within an organisation through workspace. A blueprint for setting up effective collaborations emerges from the research, which concludes with two summary concepts. The first, para-organisations, shows publishers how they can structure experimental projects through small satellite organisations that sit outside traditional hierarchy and are dynamic, have agency and are active in the process of innovation. The second is about using work-spaces and corporate culture to develop a collaborative mindset. This focuses on developing staff skills so that they have collaborative sensitivities to network effectively, collaborate well internally and externally, and see the opportunities for learning, creativity and innovation through collaborative activity. These approaches allow the industry to innovate and compete effectively in order to thrive in the rapidly evolving new digital landscape.