Table 4 Discourse in the decision phase

Financial capital

“But what could be the commercial interest of somebody to join, there could be some kind of a clash of interests for some of the partners. On one hand they already have their running operations so obviously they are also interesting in selling their own stuff. The question is now, how are actually the compensations distributed between the collaboration model and partners. I think this will be necessary to discuss because otherwise partners could reject to join the collaboration model because it’s contradicting to their business model.”

“Nobody will invest money unless they also get some money.”

“…If it’s useful they will use it because they gain money and if the opportunity fits in their plans they will not go out of their way to participate in the collaboration model.”

“If you don’t bill them at least ask them how much they would be willing to pay for the functionality.”

“This is not a fast growing business area, and I don’t see any venture capitalist in the world that would invest in the slow growing business opportunities.”

Human capital

“..the most important people in the company are sales persons, because they bring in the revenue and they know what the customer wants. You should have people from sales, trying to push your concepts… These are the people that should be involved in technology projects but that never happen.”

“In technology there are very important partners within the project, who are on top of the latest technologies so keeping in contact with these partners is very important. However, for the big companies it is not that important, because they don’t see a business opportunity…”

Social capital

“I think collaborating in this project is useful. Even though it fails.”

“We are still on page one and I had expected a lot more from this project and I have really made an effort. People are not interested in talking and doing business.”

“…now we have to put into the discussion of committing partners and they have to see something coming out of this.”

“Some companies are afraid of competition through the collaboration.”

“Importance of networking rather than the importance of the actual outcomes is our incentive for working with the collaboration model.”

“Good luck in getting people to sign the agreement.”

“…if we send this contract at the end of the project, I’m afraid that no one will sign it. I think that it’s the similar behavior with all the major players, the bigger the partner is the less they will listen to the small players.”

“Acceptable contracts is the most challenging thing, we have descriptions of contracts, how to connect this best together but I haven’t seen anybody signing those, not yet.”

“The success, like all projects we’ve been in the past, have all had a successful process but doubtable results.”

“I think trust is a major issue in business. It’s building up and securing and maintaining that trust is always difficult. Very easily lost.”

Innovation capital

“The project has focused on new technologies but not real business. Because real business contains very sensitive information. It’s easier to share resources but in real business you cannot share information.”

“…they some large partners are not going to open their testbeds, so it’s important that the partners are not competitors.”

“The collaboration is a place for you see interesting ideas and you can take them to your organization. For example, now in my company working in that area we can reinforce this idea.”

“Sometimes ideas are too early for the time and if you do it ten years later with better technology then it will be a better success, you never know.”

“I think this whole business problem is that nobody understands what it is.”