An emerging avenue of media innovation: knowledge exchange in inter-firm collaborations

Collaborative practices are becoming increasingly common in the field of journalism. Research, so far, mostly focused on large-scale investigative projects as well as collaborations between non-profit organisations or local news media. However, owing to the growing support from institutional actors, new forms of collaborations aimed at media innovation are emerging, often entailing project-based partnerships between journalistic and non-journalistic companies. This paper aims to assess, from an organisational perspective, what structural configuration of such collaborations leads to the highest level of learning outcomes for the professionals involved, a key condition for strengthening the innovation capacity of news organisations. Following a survey-based quantitative analysis of 30 collaborative projects involving 76 European organisations, insights are provided on the ideal structure of a collaboration for enhancing media professionals’ skill growth.