Employer associations, adaptive innovation and common goods: An integrated framework

Abstract

This article proposes a new theoretical framework of employer association (EA) adaptive innovation, a strategic organizational response to challenging environments facing EAs and/or relevant firms. Through adaptive innovation, EAs can enlarge their span of service offerings beyond collective, selective and elective goods, services typically explained by Olson-inspired, market-transactional theorizing. We identify, explain and conceptualize EA shifts into also offering common goods as community-building, relational types of collective action. Territorial ecosystems are one prominent new domain for this type of strategic adaptive intervention. In our illustrative case, this involves collectively organizing an open innovation ecosystem beyond an EA's own walls. Ostrom's theorizing on the governance of the commons better explains these initiatives than Olson's. Our new framework, therefore, integrates Ostrom's with Olson's theories. In broadening the field's understanding of EA strategic opportunities, this article also opens prominent lines of inquiry for future EA research.