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Chapter6.pptxManaging Aims
Chapter 6
Genuine collaborative aims exist in an entanglement of other aims, both real and imagined.
The interplay between these aims is a major factor leading to difficulty of achieving sustained agreement about collaborative purpose.
Understanding the nature of these aims in any particular situation is thus crucial to understanding how to manage them.
Introduction
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| Dimension | Elements | ||
| Ownership (internal) | Collaboration aims | Organization aims | Individual aims |
| Ownership (external) | External collaboration aims | Non-member individual aims | |
| Genuineness | Genuine aims | Pseudo-aims | |
| Routes to achievement | Aims achieved through the collaboration | Aims achieved through an individual organization or another collaboration | |
| Focus | Collaborative process aims | Substantive purpose aims | |
| Explicitness | Explicit aims | Unstated aims | Hidden aims |
Dimensions of Aims in Collaboration
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Collaborations are enacted by individuals. These individuals are linked to the various organizations that form the collaboration.
Collaboration aims, organization aims and individual aims relate directly to the aspirations of the members of a collaboration.
Collaboration aims:
They are statements about what the collaborating organizations are aspiring to achieve together.
They may be viewed as the public statement of the joint purpose of the collaborating partners.
They relate to the inter-organizational domain and are beyond the achievement of individuals or organizations acting alone.
They related the focus to the joint activity
Dimension 1: Ownership (internal)
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b) Organization aims:
They are statements relating to the aspirations of each of the organizations involved.
They are statements of what organizations seek to achieve for themselves and tend to be closely aligned with their functions, responsibilities and spheres of activity.
They related the focus to what an organization hopes to gain for itself from participating
c) Individual aims:
They are statements relating to the aspirations of the individuals involved
They may relate to career progression or personal causes.
Individuals are likely to be mandated to a role in the collaboration by superiors. It is relatively rare for individuals to participate in collaboration solely for self-interest reasons.
Unlike organization aims, individual aims do not account for – or relate to – an individual’s involvement in the collaboration.
Dimension 1: Ownership (internal)
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We have two types: external collaboration aims and non-member individual aims. They relate hence to parties outside the collaboration.
External collaboration aims:
They exist where the force for collaboration is from external pressures rather than from any of the members.
They relate mostly to government policy drives as well as from other external stakeholders such as pressure groups or customers
Members of the collaboration may be invited to subscribe to these aims but in many situations they are also imposed upon the collaborating partners.
b) Non-member individual aims:
They exist where individual has a strong stake or other interest in a collaboration even though they are not formally a part of it.
Unlike external collaboration aims, those who own non-member aims usually do not have enough power to impose them upon collaboration.
A common source of non-member individual aims is partnership or alliance managers whose job is to support the members.
Dimension 2: Ownership (external)
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a) Genuine aims:
Many of the aims expressed by participants in collaboration either in conversation or in formal documents are genuine statements about what they aspire to achieve.
b) Pseudo-aims:
In some situations, collaboration aims are fabricated to meet the specification of the funding provider. Such collaboration aims may exist purely to legitimize the existence of the collaboration as opposed to being a genuine representation of the partners’ collaborative intent. These aims are called “pseudo –aims”.
If collaborative aim is purely symbolic in nature, the commitment to achieving it is likely to be low.
Pseudo collaboration aims thus generally derive as a reaction to external collaboration aims and the interplay between these and any genuine aims that the members have for the collaboration drives the joint activities that they pursue.
Pseudo-aims can be as well at organization and individual aim level.
Dimension 3: Genuineness
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We can distinguish between: (1) aims that are to be achieved via collaboration, and (2) those that an individual, an organization or even another collaboration can pursue separately.
When discussing organization and individual aims, we noted that a subset of these would be related to the interests of the collaboration
In practice, participants are likely to try to pursue only a subset of that subset through the collaboration.
Others remain to be addressed through the organization alone or even in an individual’s private capacity.
Disentangling aims that do relate to a particular collaboration from those that do not has become hence problematic.
It is common for individual members to combine agendas across the various organizational and inter-organizational initiatives that they are involved in when they see connections between the various agendas. Others who are not involved, do not see these related agendas
Dimension 4: Routes to Achievement
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In collaboration, aims can relate to (1) collaborative process, as well as to (2) substantive purpose
a) Collaborative process:
They express the aims that relate to the how of collaborating
b) Substantive purpose:
They refer essentially to the aims that express the what of collaborating.
Process aims:
They are commonly seen as a mean of achieving substantive ends
They are usually perceived as subordinate to the substantive collaboration aims.
Process aims that are subordinate to the substantive aims often fall in the external collaboration aims category (for example: government policies)
Process aims are not always positive in their intent regarding collaboration. Those who have been “forced” into the collaboration by such policies may seek either to minimize the collaborative processes to a level that will satisfice, or even bypass them.
Invisible products:
In some situations the process of working together is seen by some parties as essential to the collaborative advantage. The aim is hence not known and communicated to all parties. It is not explicitly stated and instead a substantive (pseudo-) aim is created. This kind of collaboration is referred to by invisible products
Dimension 5: Focus
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We distinguish three elements in this category: explicit aims, unstated aims and hidden aims.
In practice, there are many reasons why both collaborative process aims and substantive purpose aims many knowingly not be revealed to other participants.
It is even possible that organization aims in respect of the collaboration may be hidden from individuals in the same organization.
Hidden agendas are thus common in collaboration.
Deliberate concealing of aims is not the only reason why aims are not clearly stated. Other reason exist:
Complex hierarchy of sub-aims stemming from both individual and organizational members
Limited opportunities for exploring and explicating aims.
The possibility for representatives to mistakenly take for granted that others understand their aims and to make assumptions about others aims
Dimension 6: Explicitness
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Even when aims are explicitly stated, the likelihood that individuals will attach to them the same meaning is too low.
Formal contracts are one way in which partners sometime seek to explicate and tie down collaborative aims. Yet, managers often comment that the challenge lies in managing all the aspects of a collaboration that are not covered by the contract.
For aims that are not explicitly stated, we can distinguish between:
Those that are intentionally unstated and,
Those that are unwittingly or not deliberately unstated.
Dimension 6: Explicitness
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Relevance and Value
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| Practical Significance of the Framework | |
| Aspect | Practical Relevance |
| Ownership (internal) | Understanding motivations and constraints and resolving confusion |
| Ownership (external) | Managing external stakeholders |
| Genuineness | Clarifying what you really want to achieve and what you need to achieve in order to satisfy others |
| Routes to achievement | Asking “Does this aim really have anything to do with this collaboration? … or should it have?” |
| Focus | Considering how process and substantive aims interrelate and whether the balance is right; establishing whether any party has negative process aims |
| Explicitness | Uncovering the taken for granted and that which cannot be in the public arena |
| Multiple perceptions | Exploring how others may view things and explaining their actions |
| Changes over time | Monitoring how aims have changed in the past; weighing up how they may change in the future |
