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May 2006 Editorial

The Importance of Collaborative Cultures

 

Shannon Flumerfelt, PhD.

Editor of the E-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership

 

 

Collaborative cultures are relevant in today’s organizational environments, where networking, connectedness, multiple constituents’ views and corporate responsibility are valued.   Simmons and Lovegrove (2005) explain how corporate thinking has evolved in regard based on a variety of research methods.¹   Molberg-Jorgensen (2004) describes collaborative cultures as, “. . . . how people communicate, understand, coordinate, and accomplish things together.”  (p. 87)²  Tyrell (2004) states, “At its core, the concept of collaboration relies on two higher order concepts:  social relationships and communication.” (p. 69)³   Developing collaborative cultures requires an understanding of how to combine organizational goals and human interactions in a way that brings forth unrealized institutional potential.

 

The work of current organizational change leaders has consistently promoted the salience of collaboration.  For instance, Senge (1990) describes learning communities and explains how important they are in developing systems thinking in an organization, where shared mission, vision and goals have meaning to stakeholders.⁴  Deming proposed that total quality management could be achieved through collaborative cultures that allowed for employee self-efficacy and improvement.⁵  Walsh and Dalmer (2005) demonstrate specific ways that collaboration between supervisors and subordinates can be used to obtain quality improvement and organizational growth through action inquiry and performance appraisals based on dialogue.⁶  In fact, collaborative cultures are considered a new level of organizational performance, as described by Josserand (2004),  “Stuck between bureaucratic rigidities and internal competition due to market mechanism, organizations have had to reinvent their comparative advantage by attempting to introduce or to reintroduce some form of cooperation beyond their internal boundaries. . . . [with the] ultimate form of the community of practice.” (p. 307)⁷   In other words, collaborative cultures provide new standards to operate under in order to pursue corporate goals in ways that broaden the participation of stakeholders and benefits to the organization.

 

The reality of establishing collaborative cultures, however, is difficult.  Sometimes presented as a technique for managing conflict (Thomas, 1976), current research has both changed and specified how collaboration is understood in a corporate setting.⁸  Organizations attempting to move to or establish collaborative cultures have found that it is a complex process.  Josserand, Clegg, Kornberger and Pitsis (2004) describe how collaboration is thought of as “embedded with the tension and contradiction inherent to competition . . . .”(p. 37)⁹   Yet, they are able to demonstrate empirically that “. . . . the development of collaboration [is] as [sic] an interstitial activity, an activity that can play with the rules and the system it is embedded within.” (ibid)¹⁰  They do this by explaining that collaboration is closely tied to organizational values, structure, politics, human resources culture and practice.  Furthermore, the value in collaborative practices is that they “. . . . contribute to organizational resilience.” (ibid, p. 44)¹¹   Their work demonstrates that although it is not a straight-forward activity, collaboration is a value-added function. 

 

Molberg-Jorgensen (2004) presents an interesting study of a company attempting to change its governance structure from hierarchical to collaborative.  While well-intentioned, this change process from autocratic to collaborative structures suffered because there was a lack of connection to “. . . . the everyday life and language of the company.” (p. 86)¹² Actual versus perceived corporate beliefs were disconnected through misunderstood language expression and use of power.   While this company struggled with a culture change, the seemingly inert issues of word choice and new roles became detractors to the process.  The problems with this change project were subtle, involving differences between tacit and implicit behaviors and language.  Molberg-Jorgensen concluded if collaboration is thought of as a game, with recognized overt rules and implicit social codes and mores, then success is more likely. Tyrell (2004) reinforces Molberg-Jorgensen’s findings and describes collaboration as a very specific act.  He states, “the specific form to choose and the exact details of the chosen form, account for the . . . . success of any collaboration.” (p. 71)¹³  Both Molberg-Jorgensen and Tyrell  imply that leaders need a high-level of knowledge, disposition and skill for success when implementing collaborative cultures. 

 

The abilities of the organizational leader are critical in collaborative cultures as explained by Josserand (2004) as he describes the delicate balance, called “ambiguity,” (p. 307) between collaborative cultures and organizational control and describes the importance of involvement from management in attending to this state.¹⁴  Pavlovich and Kearins (2004) completed a longitudinal study of collaborative networks, and demonstrated that when given long-term attention, imbedded, interconnected and complex patterns of organizational attributes do develop and help to sustain collaborative cultures.¹⁵  This cannot happen without leadership that is focused on developing and maintaining collaboration.  Tyrell (2004) explains that the act of collaboration involves the work of creating shared meaning in a variety of different types of relationships that exist in an organization through formal structures, resources, knowledge, ideology and emotion, as he states, “Clearly successful leadership in a collaborative effort requires an extensive knowledge of emotional taxonomies, many of which are culturally defined, together with the ability to maintain a goal orientation.” (p. 79) He explains this more clearly, “[When leaders] Buy in to a collaborative venture, the acceptance of a means-ends path, requires not only Emotional Intelligence [sic] on the part of the leaders of the venture; it requires the presentation of a motivating vision, the construction of a symbolic interface (a culture), and the construction of rituals designed to create/recreate that culture.” (p. 81)¹⁶  In other words, collaborative cultures are chosen and thoughtfully developed and nurtured by leaders. 

 

Understanding both what collaborative cultures are and how they work is helpful to leaders.  Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg (2004) explain that collaboration does not require conflict-free, harmonious relationships, but, rather, they acknowledge that “complexity, risk and uncertainty” (p. 48) are realities of corporate culture and that collaboration is a wise venue for fostering potential in those dichotomous dynamics.¹⁷  They describe the negotiated reality of corporate culture, with arbitrated views and formal and informal monitoring systems, until a “goodness of fit” (ibid, p. 50) is achieved.  They present a view that collaboration requires more than a linear conceptualization; instead it requires complexity analysis to be better understood.  They studied inter-organizational collaboration and devised ten building blocks arranged as a taxonomy of collaborative synthesis.  The ten blocks are addressed only after transitional work has been done, based on an agreed upon understanding of where power, knowledge and work will occur in the collaboration.  The ten interdependent blocks of synthesis include stating vision and mission, deciding on governance structures, naming point people, settling on the parameters of trust and reciprocity, choosing which technology and expertise to use, recognizing alliances, identifying the style of leadership needed, articulating key performance indicators, settling on knowledge management issues, and creating contracts (either formal, legal ones or more informal ones).

 

While collaboration is complex, it provides a solution for excellence when indecision, hesitation and vagueness plague organizational dynamics.  As stated by Pitsis, Kornberger and Clegg (2004), collaboration is by no means a cheap way of doing business, but it should be pursued “because there is a desire to achieve excellence at all levels of the project.” (ibid, p. 59)

 

References:

 

 

¹Simmons, J. & Lovegrove, I.  (2005).  Bridging the conceptual divide:  lessons from stakeholder analysis [Electronic version].  Journal of Organizational Change Management, 18(5), 495-513.

 

²Molberg-Jorgensen, K. (2004).  Creating value-based collaboration:  life forms and power in a change project [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 85-107.

 

³Tyrell, M. W. D. (2004).  Communicating the right relationship—for now [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 69-83.

 

⁴Senge, P. (1990).  The Fifth Discipline.  New York:  Doubleday.

 

⁵Deming, G. E. (1982).  Out of the Crisis.  Cambridge, MA:  Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

 

⁶Walsh, K. & Fisher, D. (2005).  Action inquiry and performance appraisals:  Tools for organizational learning and development [Electronic version].  The Learning Organization:  An International Journal, 12(1), 26-41.

 

⁷Josserand, E. (2004).  Cooperation within bureaucracies:  Are communities of practice an answer?  [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 307-339.

 

⁸Thomas, K. (1976).  Conflict and conflict management, in:  M. D. Dunnettee (Ed.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.  Chicago:  Rand McNally.

 

⁹Josserand, E., Clegg, S., Kornberger, M. & Pitsis, T. S. (2004).  Friends or foes?  Practicing collaboration—an introduction [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 37-45.

 

¹⁰ibid

 

¹¹ibid

 

¹²Molberg-Jorgensen, K. (2004).  Creating value-based collaboration:  life forms and power in a change project [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 85-107.

 

¹³Tyrell, M. W. D. (2004).  Communicating the right relationship—for now [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 69-83.

 

¹⁴Josserand, E. (2004).  Cooperation within bureaucracies:  Are communities of practice an answer?  [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 307-339.

 

¹⁵Pavlovich, K. & Kearins, K. (2004).  Structural embeddedness and community-building through collaborative network relationships [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 195-214.

 

¹⁶Tyrell, M. W. D. (2004).  Communicating the right relationship—for now [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 69-83.

 

¹⁷Pitsis, T. S., Kornberger, M. & Clegg, S. C. (2004).  The art of managing relationships in interorganizational collaboration [Electronic version].  M@n@gement, 7(3), 47-67.

 

 

 

Comments to: flumerfe@leadingtoday.org

 

 

 

About the author:

 

Shannon Flumerfelt, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at Oakland University. Previously, she worked in public school administration and teaching, which included leadership development initiatives, restructuring schools with the Coalition of Essential Schools’ principles and other various change issues related to traditionally-based settings. Her scholarly interests include organizational leadership change and development and technology.