Dialogical strategies for orchestrating strategic innovation networks: The case of the Internet of Things

•Collaborating in innovation networks is critical to achieve strategic innovation.•Orchestrating strategic innovation networks effectively key to innovation success.•Dialogue is a mechanism for hub actors to orchestrate strategic innovation networks.•Strategies: persuasive projection, reflective development, definitional control.•Legitimacy intimately connected to dialogical strategies & supporting orchestration.

Strategic innovation has been shown to provide significant value for organisations whilst at the same time challenging traditional ways of thinking and working. There is less known, however, as to how organisations collaborate in innovation networks to achieve strategic innovation. In this paper we explore how innovation networks are orchestrated in developing a strategic innovation initiative around the Internet of Things. We show how a hub actor brings together a diverse group of actors to initially create and subsequently orchestrate the strategic innovation network through the employ of three dialogical strategies, namely persuasive projection, reflective development, and definitional control. Further, we illuminate how different types of legitimacy are established through these various dialogical strategies in orchestrating strategic innovation networks.