Creating Collaborative Advantage

Interorganizational collaboration is not an easy process to implement successfully, yet it is becoming a significant means of achieving organizational objectives in turbulent environments. Creating Collaborative Advantage draws on the work of authors with a high level of relevant experience, providing a thought-provoking and highly accessible introduction to this new concept. The book begins by developing a framework of key dimensions for understanding collaboration. It highlights the differing rationales and contexts involved and the range of elements that need to be explored before embarking on collaborative endeavors. Next, the volume focuses on collaboration in practice. It examines the problems that can occur when different aims, cultures, procedures, power resources, and professional languages cross organizational boundaries, paying close attention to the importance of creating and sustaining value for the participants in these contexts. Finally, the book addresses the processes of acting as facilitator to collaborative groups, discussing how and why a third-party facilitator role can be helpful, and exploring the various processes and techniques that can be used. Creating Collaborative Advantage is invaluable reading for students and professionals in strategic management, public sector management, management science and operations research, and general management.

Chris Huxham is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management Science at the University of Strathclyde.

CONTRIBUTORS OUTSIDE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

Catherine Barr University of Strathclyde

Steve Cropper Keele University

Colin Eden University of Strathclyde

Arnold de Jong Netherlands