Abstract
In dynamic and knowledge-intensive industries, the pursuit of technological innovations has increasingly become the activity of networks of collaborating organizations. Such networks are complex arrangements characterized by a high degree of self-organizing, shared decision making and relational mechanisms of governance. However, the potentially paradoxical nature of collaborative innovation in interorganizational networks generates tensions that challenge their management and stability. This research uses an exploratory case study of collaborative innovation in health information technology to investigate the tensions that emerged in the collaboration trajectory and how the members of the network attempted to address these. The failure of the organizations to sustain their collaborative efforts beyond an initial development phase provides an interesting opportunity to examine the processes of interorganizational network governance and relationship management in the context of collaborative innovation.