Innovation intermediaries in cross-sector partnerships: A role–phase framework for innovation in wicked problem contexts

Abstract

Cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) are increasingly mobilized to address wicked problems such as climate change, health inequalities, and energy transitions. While innovation intermediaries are widely recognized as critical actors in facilitating collaboration within such partnerships, existing research offers fragmented insights into how intermediary roles evolve over time and why particular forms of intermediation become salient at different moments in wicked problem innovation processes. Prior studies typically conceptualize intermediary roles as static or sector-specific, providing limited guidance for understanding their dynamic contribution across partnership phases.

This paper addresses this gap by developing a role–phase framework that explains how innovation intermediary roles emerge, shift, and recombine throughout the lifecycle of cross-sector partnerships addressing wicked problems. Drawing on an integrative literature review, we synthesize insights from 20 empirical and conceptual studies examining innovation intermediaries operating within collaborations characterized by high knowledge uncertainty, value conflict, and dynamic complexity. These three dimensions of wickedness are used as analytical lenses to interpret how intermediary activities function as responses to changing collaboration challenges over time.

Our analysis identifies seven recurring intermediary roles—convenor, mediator, learning catalyst, integrator, scoping leader, orchestrator, and policy advocate—and maps their associated mechanisms (e.g. trust building, sensemaking, alignment, coordination, and institutional influence) to distinct phases of the CSP lifecycle and the wicked problem innovation process. The framework shows that intermediary roles are not stable attributes but are enacted dynamically, with specific role configurations becoming more salient as partnerships move from problem-setting and direction-setting to implementation and review.

By explicitly linking intermediary roles to phases of collaboration and dimensions of wickedness, this paper makes three contributions. First, it advances innovation intermediation research by introducing a processual, phase-sensitive perspective on intermediary roles. Second, it shifts analytical attention from intermediary activities to the underlying mechanisms through which intermediation enables collaboration under conditions of wickedness. Third, it provides a conceptual bridge between CSP lifecycle research and wicked problem innovation studies. The framework offers actionable insights for both scholars and practitioners seeking to design and govern intermediary support in collaborations addressing complex societal challenges.