Talk:General theory of collaboration

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I would be very interested to discuss the idea of a general theory of collaboration - perhaps someone has heard of a model or working theory for collaboration? Mark Elliott 13:21, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Scholarly Book

I am familiar with the collaboration literature and I believe one of the best scholarly works done on the subject in terms of aggregating the literature and laying out different theoretical definitions and perspectives is:

  • Sandy Schuman (ed.). Creating a Culture of Collaboration: The International Association of Facilitators Handbook. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006, ISBN: 0-7879-8116-8.

Among the many chapters of the book above, which written by collaboration scholars, several theories of collaboration are presented and models developed by the Center for Technology and Government (CTG) researches and Rockefeller College modelers. These researches (David F. Andersen, George P. Richardson, and Anthony Creswell) developed an integrative theory of interorganizational collaboration in order to fulfill CTG's goal of helping government organizations work together better. MLWilson 01:07, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Theories of Collaboration

I am going to help compile scholarly theories of collaboration here (for some, will add full references later). Perhaps we can then transfer pertinent theoretical definitions to the article and to the Collaboration page as well -- as the page seems to be missing the mark and needs some work. MLWilson 05:43, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

  • "Collaboration is a function of the recursive interaction of knowledge, engagement, results, perceptions of trust, and accumlation of activity over time."[1] The author notes this theory was the result of significant research using case data, literature, and the expert judgement by CTG researchers.
  • "A mutually beneficial relationships between two or more parties who work together toward common goals by sharing responsibility, authority, and acountability for achieving results."[2]
  • "A mutually beneficial relationship between two or more individuals, groups, or organizations, who jointly design ways to work together to meet their related interests and who learn with and from each other, sharing, responsibility, authority, and accountability for achieving results." (Chapter 14)
  • "is a relationship in which two or more people are committed to the success fo whatever project or process they are jointly engaged in an use assumptions and behaviors consistent with interdependence while pursuing those outcomes." (Chapter 8)
  • "the confluence of engagement of the parties involved; the higher the engagement, the higher the collaboration achieved." (Chapter 4)
  • "The objective of collaboration is to create a richer, more comprehensive appreciation of the problem among the stakehoders than any one of the could contruct alone" (Gray, 1991, p.5). (Chapter 10)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Marinez-Moyano, I. J. Exploring the Dynamics of Collaboration in Interorganizational Settings, Ch. 4, p. 83, in Schuman, S. (ed.). Creating a Culture of Collaboration: The International Association of Facilitators Handbook. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006, ISBN: 0-7879-8116-8. , 2006.
  2. ^ Chrislip, D. D., and Larson, C. E. Collaborative Leadership: How citizens and Civic Leaders Can Make a Difference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994, p. 5.

[edit] Rewrite needed

Previously, this article appeared to be the most comprehensive explanation of collaboration. The article has been stagnant for over a year and in that time the quality of related articles has greatly improved. Beyond that, the overall expectation and execution of formal standards appears to be improving across Wikipedia.

I have recently put in a lot of work on collaboration to provide general history and application. I also created the collaborative method article to meet requests on both this talk page and the one for collaboration—specific theories and processes through which persons collaborate.

Both of the above situations add up to this: this article now sticks out like a sore thumb, both in style and (lack of) content. Do we: 1. rewrite this? 2. merge into the aforementioned articles? or 3. remove altogether? —Parhamr 08:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

My vote is for two, though one wouldn't be bad either. —Parhamr 08:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)