This study builds on current Innovation research, specifically our investigation of the collaborative methods of expert ensembles (e.g. string quartets, design teams, product development teams).

It explores why “ensembling” should matter to organizations interested in producing innovative outcomes via collaboration, and observes how these collaborative methods transform when the work of creative groups is “stretched” across spatial and temporal boundaries, into virtual communities and global networks. Fieldwork focuses initially on a new musical experiment, in which the entrenched, centuries-old collaborative practices of a string quartet is challenged by the rehearsal and performance of a new composition written for four string quartets to play together. Composer Sir John Tavener calls for the piece to be performed in spaces that require the four quartets to sit at distances apart from one another, further debilitating their usual dependence on visual and aural modes of communication traded in close proximity. By understanding how these four quartets address the challenges of “ensembling” across increased spatial distance and temporal delays, and how this in turn impacts the group’s ability to achieve innovative outcomes, I aim to develop a model of variables impacting work process and outcome, which can be tested and applied to groups working in other “stretched” conditions (virtual and geographical).