(2) Descriptions

Insérer ici factoids (résultats, etc.)

1. 1. BASES ET CONDITIONS INITIALES

Workers engage in a large number of higher-quality tacit interactions when organizational barriers (such as hierarchies and silos) don’t get in the way, when people trust each other have the confidence to organize themselves, and when they have the tools to make decisions and communicate quickly and easily (McKinsey 2006).

Wherever groups of people collaborate to solve problems, innovations are more likely to occur at the front lines of interaction than at the corporate center (McKinsey 2006).

To boost the effectiveness of tacit interactions, companies must also upend their strategic decision-making processes. Managers today commonly believe that more and better ideas will follow when communication and interaction increase inside a company and beyond and become “multidirectional”. But few companies bake this understanding into the development of strategy that allow a portfolio of initiatives to emerge from internal and external interactions (McKinsey 2006).

Bottom-up innovators usually don`t have the structural authority to order people to join a team; instead the innovator succeeds by influencing them and leveraging a personal network collaborating, sharing, inspiring and leading (McKinsey 2006).

To encourage more interaction, innovation and collaboration, companies must become more porous by continuing to break down barriers to interactions – barriers such as hierarchies and organizational silos (McKinsey 2006).

It does not appear that all stakeholders must participate, although the extent of participation has consequences for the possible outcomes of the collaboration. P.154 (Wood & Gray 1991).

For a collaboration to occur, a convener need not identify and assemble all stakeholders of a problem domain. Alternatively, the convener may identify and assemble other configurations of stakeholders, such as (a) those stakeholders, however few, that are most interested in working collaboratively to solve a problem; (b) the most powerful or influential stakeholders, along with those who seek solutions, whatever their power; (c) the majority of stakeholders of a problem domain so that social norms can be established that pressure others to participate eventually; or (d) the best organized network of stakeholders of the problem domain so that social pressure may be brought to bear on nonparticipants. P.155 (Wood & Gray 1991).

According to Trist (1983), one of the outcomes of collaboration is increased regulation of the problem domain – a means of joint control over actions taken that influence the domain. Environment turbulence is reduced because stakeholders no longer create uncertainty for one another [...]. Instead, information [...] is exchanged. P.159 (Wood & Gray 1991).

Intérêt

Unless interdependence can be completely managed through standards and interfaces (Sanchez &  Mahoney, 1996) there will be potential gains from managing it collaboratively (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

The coordination challenges created by this heterogeneity can impede the effectiveness of inter-unit collaboration or “integration”, even when employees are motivated to undertake collaborative efforts (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

The specialization of activity within organizations therefore gives rise to opposing forces, as it makes inter-unit collaboration valuable while also making it difficult (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

John and Harrison find that potential manufacturing synergies between business units are more likely to be realized when incentives that encourage inter-unit collaboration exist (John & Harrison, 1999) (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

When all units pursue identical tasks, there is no qualitative difference between engaging in “own” tasks (production) and “helping” others with their tasks (collaboration) – the two are substitutes (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

Cooperation between cities arises when potential benefits are high and transaction costs of coordinating, negotiating, monitoring, and enforcing a contract are low (Feiock, 2007; Lubell, Schneider, Scholz, & Mete, 2002) (Hawkins 2010).

Most accounts of collaboration assume that organizations calculate the potential benefits and costs involved in forming a relationship and then make rational choices based on clear preferences (Dacin et al 2007) (Suarez & Hwang 2008).

Strategic alliances among businesses fail as often as they succeed, and a variety of studies indicate that nonprofit partnerships involve considerable costs and unexpected challenges (Das and Teng 2000; Dyer et al 2001; Stone 2000; Gazley and Brudney 2007) (Suarez & Hwang 2008).

Size of an organization can affect its propensity to cooperate with others. Larger organizations may be more appealing partners than small organizations in inter-organizational collaborations because they have more resources to share with others (Mulford & Mulford, 1977, cités par Mary K. Foster and Agnes G. Meinhard 2002)

Newer organizations have many competing priorities that draw on their resources as they seek to establish themselves. In addition, they may not have the same depth of networks and connections as older organizations (Stinchcombe, 1965), a condition that facilitates inter-organizational relationships (Mary K. Foster and Agnes G. Meinhard 2002).

Another organizational characteristic found to affect propensity to collaborate formally is mandate of the organization. Goldman and Kahnweiler (2000) found that collaborators with role ambiguity are more successful than those with less tolerance for ambiguity. Applying this to non-profit organizations would suggest that those with very broad mandates, such as social services or education or advocacy, might be more likely to experience role ambiguity and thus might be more likely to collaborate than would health organizations that have a more defined mandate (Mary K. Foster and Agnes G. Meinhard 2002).

Oliver (1990) suggests that the greater the similarity of interests, the more likely will organizations choose collaboration (Mary K. Foster and Agnes G. Meinhard 2002).

Social factors such as experience on the part of key personnel in working with the opposite entity and genuine affection for each other are more important than economic benefits (Mary M. Shaw 2003).

Profit as a motive for establishing a partnership may be described as expanding capabilities without expanding staff, sharing resources, or increasing efficiency and access to information (Bergquist, Betwee, and Meuel, 1995; Child and Faulkner, 1998; Collins, 1997; Prahalad, 1997; Sabatier, 1998, cités par Mary M. Shaw 2003).

Non-profits may fear the loss of autonomy when they become involved in a collaborative relationship (Backman and Smith, 2000; Takahashi, 2001, cités par Mary M. Shaw 2003).

Collaboration with a non-profit may save time. Because authorities in a non-profit can make decisions quickly, requiring at most a few telephone calls to certain members of its board of directors (Mary M. Shaw 2003).

Inter-organizational collaboration often occurs when the problems faced by organizations are complex and multi-faceted: issues such as the environment, diversity in the workplace, business/ aboriginal relations and the role of business in the educational system are currently being decided by organizations in collaborative relationships (Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy 2000).

Collaboration may be necessary and desirable, but the research evidence indicates that it is hardly easy (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Cross-sector collaborations do not solve all of the problems they tackle. Indeed, some are solved badly, and some solutions have created the problems they were meant to solve. Collaboration — especially cross-sector collaboration — is no panacea (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

The perceived need to collaborate across sectors has provoked two general responses:

-          Organizations will only collaborate when they cannot get what they want without collaborating (Hudson et al. 1999; Roberts 2001)

-          And the second response is to assume that collaboration is the Holy Grail of solutions and always best (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Often, governments and foundations insist that funding recipients collaborate, even if they have little evidence that it will work (Barringer and Harrison 2000; Ostrower 2005, cités par John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Environmental factors

The fundamental need to reduce resource dependencies in the environment (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978) or to decrease transaction costs (Williamson 1975) also propels organizations toward various types of inter organizational relationships (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Collaborations are subject to both competitive and institutional pressures that significantly affect their formation as well as long-term sustainability (Oliver 1990 ; Sharfman, Gray, and Yan 1991). The institutional environment includes normative, legal, and regulatory elements that organizations must conform to if they are to achieve the legitimacy that is necessary for survival (DiMaggio and Powell 1983, cités par John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006)).

Institutional forces appeared to be more intractable than competitive forces; for example, a decrease in public funds and changes in welfare payment policies created strong disincentives for the partnership to continue (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Sector failure

Government solutions, including service provision, have historically been the product of either market failure or voluntary action failure. If all three sectors fail, we have a public value failure (Bozeman 2002) that can be addressed in one of several ways: We can live with the problem, engage in symbolic action that does little to address the problem, or mobilize collective action to fashion a cross-sector solution that holds the promise of creating public value (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Direct antecedents of collaboration formation

A brokering organization or a legitimate convener can facilitate collaboration formation (Gray 1989). Conveners, who are often recognized as boundary-spanning leaders with credibility in multiple arenas touched by the problem (Kastan 2000), can draw together an initial set of stakeholders (Gray 1989) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

The role of prior relationships or existing networks is important because it is often through these networks that partners judge the trustworthiness of other partners and the legitimacy of key stakeholders. The more partners have interacted in positive ways in the past, the more social mechanisms will enable coordination and safeguard exchanges (Jones, Hesterly, and Borgatti 1997; Ring and Van de Ven 1994) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

“Unless the potential for real collaborative advantage is clear, it is generally best, if there is a choice, to avoid collaboration” (Huxham 2003, 421) (Michael McGuire 2006).

Goals may not be aligned among network partners, and poor performance by a government agency can hurt the performance of the network as a whole (Goldsmith and Eggers 2004) (Michael McGuire 2006).

Galaskiewicz and Shatin (1981) found that nonprofits were more likely to collaborate with each other if their leaders had characteristics in common (Suarez & Hwang 2008).

Leaders might seek collaborations with organizations in the sector where they have the most familiarity and experience (Suarez & Hwang 2008).

In IBM’s recent CEO study, more than three quarters of the 765 chief executive officers queried cited collaboration and partnering as very important to their innovation efforts (IBM 2008).

To make these changes possible, companies must make data available to more people in the organization; change the corporate culture to one of collaboration and trust; and implement tools to harness collective knowledge, experience and communities (IBM 2008).

Pouvoir, hiérarchie et network

Power and politics are critical issues in collaboration since the participants remain relatively autonomous and must be convinced to act even though there is no legitimate authority that can demand co-operation (Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy 2000).

Some collaborations will be more negotiated than others, while others will be mandated by resource dependencies or discursive legitimacy. But it is not the relative power of the participants that determines whether the relationship is collaborative (cf. Gray, 1989; Gricar and Brown, 1981; Hardy and Phillips, 1998), but rather the degree to which the roles and practices that characterize the relationship are uncertain and do not rely on pre-existing mechanisms such as market and hierarchy (Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy 2000).

As suggested here, however much the “era of the network” is present, hierarchies persist to fulfill the legal and policy functions of government. It also demonstrates that not all public networks are alike; they are differentiated by what they do — or more precisely, by what powers they have (Robert Agranoff 2006).

An internal look at networks indicates that although they are largely self-organizing, they require structuring that reflects their knowledge seeking orientation. They need to be managed like organizations but in collaborative, non-hierarchical ways (Robert Agranoff 2006).

Instead of a completely flat, self-organizing network, the presence of a lead organization, acting as system controller or facilitator, is often a critical element of effectiveness in collaborative management (Michael McGuire 2006).

(Provan and Milward 1995) argue that “centralization appears to facilitate both integration and coordination, something that decentralized systems have a difficult time accomplishing because of the number of organizations and linkages involved” (Michael McGuire 2006).

Strategic activity still occurs at the network level when coordination is more centralized, but administrative and operational decisions are left to the central organization (Michael McGuire 2006).

Many observers have pointed out collaborative public management structures are different from hierarchies, which encompass a management approach based in top-down, command and control relationships (Goldsmith and Eggers 2004). In addition, a “top-down or holistic perspective of management is not likely to be very productive” in a governing system that is collaborative (Kickert, Klijn, and Koppenjan 1997, 11) (Michael McGuire 2006).

With regard to network structuring, it may not be the number of actors in a collaboration that is important but the arrangement of the actors (O’Toole 1988) (Michael McGuire 2006).

The main elements of network management are big-picture thinking, coaching, mediation, negotiation, strategic thinking, interpersonal communications, and team building (Goldsmith and Eggers’s 2004) (Michael McGuire 2006).

Essentially, “the success or failure of a network approach can often be traced to its original design” (Michael McGuire 2006).

It is true that in hierarchies, who reports to whom is defined, how daily tasks are to be performed is reasonably clear, and the roles that staff members play are made explicit in job descriptions. A collaborative manager cannot rely on an organizational chart or consult history for operational guidance, as the boss in a hierarchical organization can do (Michael McGuire 2006).

We maintain that some participants in network governance are vastly more powerful than others (Roelofs 2009).

In fact, public-private policy partnerships may achieve cost reductions at the price of democracy and equity. (Pauline Rosenau, 1999) (Roelofs 2009).

Processus et institutionnalisation

As individuals come to share a vision of the problem and see themselves, collectively, as part of the solution, they become stakeholders. This shared appreciation of the problem helps create an identity for the domain which may produce mutually agreed directions and boundaries, which may then be manifested in a more permanent structure (Trist, 1983, cité par Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy 2000).

Participants in collaborative processes draw on a range of rules and resources based primarily in the institutional fields of which they are members (Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy 2000).

The collaborative processes are made more complex by the interaction of multiple sets of institutional rules and standards which may be in conflict with one another (Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy 2000).

The practice of collaboration is fundamentally shaped by the institutionalized rules and resources that originate in the fields of the collaborators (Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy 2000).

The implications of collaborative approaches to these problems spill over into other problem domains, as the collaborators carry skills, knowledge and practices back with them from the collaboration to their institutional fields (Phillips, Lawrence and Hardy 2000).

The collaborative manager plays the role of mediator and stimulates interaction (Koppenjan and Klijn 2004) (Michael McGuire 2006).

Collaborative organizations are “organizations composed of other organizations” that perform a variety of more traditional functions by institutionalizing rules, procedures, and processes into a coordinative organizational structure. Thacher (2004) argues that in practice, such partnerships have a great deal in common with conventional organizations: A distinct organizational structure with routines, roles, norms, and values is developed, and a culture that governs the collaboration emerges (Michael McGuire 2006).

The collaboration should first take small steps toward some modest level of achievement (see also Agranoff 2003). Such success reinforces attitudes that the parties to the collaboration can be trusted, thus leading to more ambitious undertakings (Michael McGuire 2006).

It’s important to recognize that bureaucracy is not going away; collaboration still complements rather than supplants single organization management (Michael McGuire 2006).

Secteur public

Public managers operate in collaborative settings every day (Michael McGuire 2006).

Kettl (1996) argues that the most important change in administrative functioning over this past century has been increasing interdependence among public organizations, which has changed the jobs of public administrators, who must now build critical linkages with other agencies (Michael McGuire 2006).

A public manager may be simultaneously involved in managing across governmental boundaries, across organizational and sectoral boundaries, and through formal contractual obligations; it is often difficult to distinguish where the boundary lies between these different environments (Michael McGuire 2006).

From a public management perspective, collaborations with nonprofits have become an essential strategy for increasing government efficiency, for reducing costs, for building community social capital, and for improving government relations with citizens (PAR 2006) (Suarez & Hwang 2008).

According to Wood (2004), intergovernmental arrangements may be preferable to public–private partnerships in that governments share common goals and values, which results in more trust, fewer agency problems, and lower transaction costs (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

The most frequent reasons are to achieve economies of scale, to organize beyond a jurisdiction’s boundaries, and to eliminate duplication (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

Economies of scale or standardization of services are the primary motivation for such contracts (ILA) (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

Posits intergovernmental partnerships and social networks are driven primarily by professional staff who are more inclined to think and act regionally and to build “epistemic communities” (p. 707) than elected officials who are more focused on electoral matters (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

A dire fiscal condition of a local government and consequently the need for resources from other organizations to deliver public service would likely help this government overcome the initial barrier such as the fear for the loss of control to create a collaborative arrangement with other local governments (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

Westley and Vredenburg (1991) also argue that success depends on shared understanding. This shared understanding includes the goal of the collaboration, nature and extent of the problems, and more. Efficiency and effectiveness as the motivation for ILAs can serve as a shared understanding of the goal of the agreement (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

A fair rate of return on the investment of resources in participating in a collaborative arrangement is an important justification for the perceived loss of autonomy as a result of such participation (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

Public managers need to ensure equitable sharing of benefits in activities such as framing, activating, mobilizing, and synthesizing collaboration (McGuire, 2002) (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

The most common reasons for the creation of agreements is a belief by public officials that an ILA will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of a public service (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

“The challenge facing public managers, then, is to know how to collect the changing and sometimes conflicting public preferences which are ‘defined and redefined through social and political interactions’ (Alford and Hughes 2008; Smith 2004:68). Public sector managers, Moore suggests, should try to act as ‘public explorers’ who ‘engage the politics surrounding their organisation to help define public value as well as engineer how their organisations operate’ (Moore 1995:20)” (Hui and Hayllar 2010).

1. 2. PROCESSUS / PROCEDURES (FORMELLES ET INFORMELLES)

Leadership et rôles

Follett describes “the leadership quality” as “the ability to organize all the forces there are in an enterprise and make them serve a common purpose.” This process creates “a group power rather than [an expression of] personal power” (Follett in Graham, 1995, p. 168) (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

Follett goes on to say that the integrative process creates a situation where those that we think of as “leaders” along with those that we might think of as “followers” together follow “the invisible leader—the common purpose.” The best leaders “put this common purpose clearly before their group… [so] that common purpose becomes the leader” (Follett in Graham, 1995, p. 172) (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

Public value creation may include efforts to solve or at least mitigate public problems; improve the efficiency, effectiveness, or fairness of public services; create or enhance a public service; or respond to public sentiment in some way (Moore, 1995) (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

While there is a lot of theorizing an overarching theory or model of collaboration remains elusive. This is as it should be. Given the complexities involved it seems foolish to speak of a theory or definitive model of collaborative practice (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

The collective idea is more than an abstract idea, it is a common purpose, a common vision that unites those that created it and motivates them to act together to achieve it (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

How is it that those different components come into contact in the first place? What is it that enables the different parts to come together to form a whole? How are outcomes achieved in the absence of hierarchical power and control? The answer is leadership. The nature of that leadership is catalytic (Luke, 1998) (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

Boundary organizations are structures that exist prior to the formation of new partnerships and give rise to boundary work that often results in the formation of new partnerships. Boundary organizations may therefore be viewed as structural or institutional catalysts (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

Boundary organizations include “coordinating committees, study commission, centers, networks, and other similar entities that are charged with reflecting diverse information and intelligence in the service of some task or action that is not possible for one actor or perspective to perform alone” (Feldman et al., 2006, p. 95). Such organizations “offer sites for collaboration, the formation of new relationships, the infusion of research and scientific information into policy, and the exercise of innovative leadership (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

Luke explains that “we live in a world of complex interconnections in which take-charge leaders are less successful than individuals and groups who provide the spark or catalyst that truly makes a difference” (p. 4) (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

Key aspect of integrative leadership is helping create the integration or common purpose to begin with and then keeping that common purpose out in front of the group all along the way so that it can be the true leader rather than one or a few persons (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

People—boundary spanners—play a catalytic role in visualizing potential public value through integrative partnerships. They act in entrepreneurial ways to make that possible, leveraging relationship capital to enable groups to work through conflict and setbacks (Ricardo S. Morse 2010).

Process Components

A key process in collaboration is negotiating formal and informal agreements about the purpose of the collaboration after some initial agreement on problem definition has been reached (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Building leadership

To be effective, these people need formal and informal authority, vision, long-term commitment to the collaboration, integrity, and relational and political skills (Crosby and Bryson 2005a; Gray 1989; Waddock 1986) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

If more powerful partners receive plum positions, less powerful partners may require other assurances their interests will be taken into account (Alexander et al. 2001) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Building legitimacy
• Building trust

Trusting relationships are the lubricant and the glue: they facilitate the work of collaboration and they hold the collaboration together (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Trust can comprise interpersonal behaviour, confidence in organizational competence and expected performance, and a common bond and sense of goodwill ( Chen and Graddy 2005) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Managing conflict

Gray (1996) has found that power issues, as prime sources of conflict, vary by phases (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Conflict may be exacerbated when the collaborating organizations differ in status (either because of size, funding, or reputation) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Planning

Careful articulation of mission, goals, and objectives; roles and responsibilities; and phases or steps, including implementation, are often cited as an important key to success (Mattessich, Murray-Close, and Monsey 2001) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

A clear understanding of mission, goals, roles, and action steps is more likely to emerge over time as conversations involving individuals, groups, and organizations grow to encompass a broader network of involved or affected parties (Huxham and Vangen 2005; Winer and Ray 1994) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Structure and Governance

Structure is a highly developed concept in organization theory and typically includes elements such as goals, specialization of tasks and division of labour, rules and standard operating procedures, and designated authority relationships (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Structure in context

Collaborative structure is influenced by environmental factors such as system stability and the collaboration’s strategic purpose (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Structural configurations

Networks centralized around a lead organization were more effective than dense, strongly tied networks, raising questions about the effectiveness of “fully integrated” networks (Provan and Milward 1995) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Governance

Contingencies and Constraints Affecting Process, Structure, and Governance

• Collaboration type

Collaborations involving system level planning activities are likely to involve the most negotiation, followed by collaborations focused on administrative-level partnerships and service delivery partnerships (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Power imbalances

Huxham and Vangen (2005) identify power imbalances among collaborating partners as a source of mistrust and therefore a threat to effective collaboration (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Tactics such as strategic planning and scenario development an help collaborations anticipate and shape future developments and manage shifts in power effectively (Bryson 2004) (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Competing institutional logics

Logics compete because actions, processes, norms, and structures that are seen as legitimate from the vantage point of one institutional logic may be seen as less legitimate or even illegitimate from the perspective of another logic (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

The contradictions embedded in a cross-sector collaboration might include the extent to which efficiency (the market), adherence to bureaucratic rules (the state), or inclusive participation (democracy) is regarded by collaboration members as essential to the design of the collaboration’s process, structure, governance, and desired outcomes (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

The collaboration literature has underscored the importance of the norm of reciprocity and equity (Ostrom, 1998, p. 28; Wood & Gray, 1991) (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

The shared norms of reciprocity and equity are an essential ingredient in collaborative efforts as participating individuals or organizations strive to overcome collective action problems (Ostrom, 1998, p. 28) (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

A norm of reciprocity helps to build trust, which is essential for sustaining collaborative efforts (Bardach, 1998; Thurmaier & Wood, 2002) (Yu-Che Chen and Kurt Thurmaier 2009).

Trust is considered one of the core components of social capital (Putnam, 1995) and is an important feature of collective action by reducing coordination, division, and defection problems that pose barriers to cooperation (Feiock, 2004; Ostrom, 1998) (Hawkins 2010).

Agents of firms who trust one another, for instance, have less concern about selection of partners and have lower coordination costs (Gulati & Singh, 1998).  One of the key factors identified in the cooperative development efforts among counties in the Tennessee Valley was the importance of building relationships and trust (Lackey, Freshwater, & Rupasingha, 2002) (Hawkins 2010).

Norms of reciprocity is another key feature of social capital. The role of reciprocity in facilitating cooperation is stressed by Ostrom (1990) and Coleman (1990). Ostrom (1998) demonstrates that people cooperate when they learn procedural rules and punish those who deviate (Hawkins 2010).

Thus the advantage of networks depends not only on who is involved, but the extent to which contacts bring about greater trust and consensus among those who interact with one another (Lubell et al., 2002) (Hawkins 2010).

Communities facing large-scale economic hardships and that have similar development objectives, for example, may form a joint venture to advance common policy goals while producing individual gains they could otherwise not receive (Post, 2004) (Hawkins 2010).

Research on trust demonstrates that business collaborations often become less formal and contract based over time, but this pattern does not hold for partnerships between government and nonprofits (Gulati 1995; Uzzi 1997; Isett and Provan 2005) (Suarez & Hwang 2008).

“Effective collaboration requires both cultural sensitivity and a common language. Nonetheless, conflicts are inevitable, and some organizations simply may be unable or unwilling to work with others” (Waugh and Streib 2006).

“The emergency manager became a coordinator and facilitator of emergency operations by first and second responders largely by maintaining a central emergency operations center, ensuring communications between and among responders, and providing essential links to policy makers. The coordinative role became crucial in large intergovernmental, intersectoral, and multiorganizational operations (Waugh 1993)” (Waugh and Streib 2006).

Organizational fields are organized by a dominant institutional logic even though two or more institutional logics may exist at the same time (e.g. Scott 2008; Thornton and Ocasio 1999) […] Studies have shown how a new logic may be introduced to a field and become dominant. […] In contrast, a few studies have identified situations where competing logics continued to co-exist for a lengthy period of time (Reay and Hinings 2009).

P1: When competing logics co-exist in an organizational field, actors guided by different logics may manage the rivalry by forming collaborations that maintain independence but support the accomplishment of mutual goals.

P2: When competing logics co-exist in an organizational field, actors guided by different logics may maintain strong separate identities and engage in collaborations that result in mutually desirable outcomes and thus sustain the co-existing logics.

P3: When the rivalry between competing logics is resolved through collaboration at micro levels, macro-level actors will develop field-level structures to support the co-existence of multiple logics (Reay and Hinings 2009).

1. 3. OUTILS / LEVIERS / RESSOURCES

Currently available enterprise information systems such as enterprise resources planning (ERP) systems, advanced planning and scheduling (APS), supply chain management (SCM) and business-to-business (B2B) systems (e.g. EDI, e-hub) do not provide a full support for the integration and co-ordination of production planning and control activities in global supply networks (Xu et al., 2003; Puschmann and Alt, 2005; Koh et al., 2008) (Henry Xu, LennyKoh, DavidParker, 2009).

Currently, most companies communicate with their customers and suppliers by using communication tools such as telephone, fax or e-mail. Information is often delayed and can become distorted, creating the bullwhip effect and unreliable supply chains (Lee et al., 1997; Metters, 1997; Miragliotta, 2006) (Henry Xu, LennyKoh, DavidParker, 2009).

In contrast, the Internet has some compelling characteristics, such as low operating cost and multi-type data support (e.g. pictures, hyperlinks). It has provided a real opportunity for achieving effective co-ordination for participating firms with different levels of co-operation. However, to achieve the full benefits of Web-based network co-ordination, appropriate business processes and principles have to be developed, and supporting information systems implemented to meet business and information requirements (Henry Xu, LennyKoh, DavidParker, 2009).

Despite their differences in structure and technologies, the fundamental operational problem of today’s supply networks is the lack of synchronisation between demand and supply (Vokurka and Lummus, 2000) (Henry Xu, LennyKoh, DavidParker, 2009).

The centralised system architecture is inherently unsuitable for the development of a network co-ordination system simply because it does not maintain the decision making autonomy of individual companies with- in the network (Anussornnitisarn et al., 2005) (Henry Xu, LennyKoh, DavidParker, 2009).

Trust, knowledge sharing, and collaboration are central elements of effective interorganizational relationships (Black et al. 2002).

These elements are particularly important when the interorganizational relationships involve the development of innovation or new business processes (Black et al. 2002).

Knowledge sharing can involve explicit forms as well as tacit and embedded forms expressed in action, groups, procedures, and artifacts [11, 52], and may vary considerably across communities of practice [49]. Knowledge may involve different costs and problems of sharing as well [26] (Black et al. 2002).

They [Cooper and Abdel-Hamid] also demonstrate that assigning too-few resources to a project at its initiation can result in snowballing needs for resources in the final stages of project work (Black et al. 2002).

In an interorganizational setting, trust can become a major governance mechanism [2, 35, 36, 1]. Norms of reciprocity and openness can develop as efficient mechanisms for social control and coordinating transactions and decisions necessary for collaboration and knowledge sharing to proceed (Black et al. 2002).

Some themes appear repeatedly: vulnerability, risk, and the role of positive expectations or optimistic belief [42]. Trust without uncertainty and risk is not meaningful [43]. Trusting behaviors increase one’s vulnerability to the trustee whose behavior is not under vulnerability, the damage is greater than the benefit if trust is fulfilled. Thus trust can be seen as the expectation that the trustee will not behave opportunistically, even if there are incentives to do so [10, 24, 33] (Black et al. 2002).

Black, Carlile, and Repenning’s [5] work with a case study by Barley [3] suggests that relative expertise among workers in different roles dynamically affects which group performs which task, which in turn affects who knows how to do what (Black et al. 2002).

Relative expertise can change through time, and theories of structuration [6, 21] view social life as unfolding through a recursive process in which accumulated values and properties (sometimes called “capital”) of institutions or individuals shape daily activities, which in turn can conserve or transform actors’ accumulated capital (Black et al. 2002).

Participants’ Engagement, or willingness to continue working on the project (see below), depends on their sense of progress in the project work. Sense of Progress (Figure 3) emerges from perceptions of the fraction of tasks undertaken to date that participants believe they have completed correctly; the fraction of the entire project that participants believe has been done correctly; and a sense of how hard the participants have worked lately. These measures provide an optimistic view, reflecting a common bias (observed both in the field and in everyday life) toward believing that any work done is work done correctly, until the need for rework is discovered (Black et al. 2002).

Collaboration is the sum of participants’ engagement. As participants are more engaged and collaborate more, productivity increases. A participant’s engagement depends on her sense of progress and her level of trust in the other participant. Trust depends on how much the party knows about the other participant’s roles, need, objectives, and constraints relating to the project and its implementation. As participants do the work, they learn more about the possibilities for their own involvement, as well as more about the other’s involvement in the project (Black et al. 2002).

Partage des connaissances / knowledge management

In essence, coordination resulted from the specification of exchanges between areas of work through roles, rules, and structures (physical and organizational) (Gerardo A. Okhuysena; Beth A. Bechky 2009).

We identified three integrating conditions for coordination: accountability, predictability, and common understanding. These integrating conditions for coordination are the means by which people collectively accomplish their interdependent tasks in the workplace (Gerardo A. Okhuysena; Beth A. Bechky 2009).

Common understanding helps coordinate by providing a shared perspective on the whole task and how individuals’ work fits within the whole. Common understanding is high when participants in an interdependent activity share knowledge of the work that is to be done, how it is to take place, and the goals and objectives of the work (Gerardo A. Okhuysena; Beth A. Bechky 2009).

Motivation

Research has generally confirmed that worker satisfaction in nonprofits is high (often higher than in other organizational forms) even in the presence of lower wage levels (Benz, 2005; Borzaga & Depedri, 2005; Mirvis, 1992). The same results have been obtained by Light (2002) in the United States, where workers in nonprofit organizations display stronger motivations and higher satisfaction linked to the meaningfulness of their work, despite lower pay, shortages of staff and resources, and excessive workloads (Carlo Borzaga and Ermanno Tortia 2006).

We find that workers in nonprofits are generally more satisfied than workers in other organizational forms, though their level of monetary remuneration is, on average, lower. Differences in incentive mixes across organizational forms are significant. Furthermore, motivations are important in influencing workers’ overall satisfaction with their jobs. Finally, satisfied workers are more loyal to their organizations (Carlo Borzaga and Ermanno Tortia 2006).

Public-sector employees are generally the least satisfied with their jobs. The percentage of workers wanting to remain as long as possible is much lower in public organizations (Carlo Borzaga and Ermanno Tortia 2006).

Individual satisfaction is also correlated with opportunities to establish relations of trust, knowledge, and collaboration with other persons within the organization. Relations are essential for the production of services like social ones where productivity and efficiency are evaluated mainly in qualitative, human, and therefore relational, terms (Carlo Borzaga and Ermanno Tortia 2006).

Workers in public bodies are the least satisfied with all self-regarding aspects apart from job security. They are not even satisfied with the wage level, even though they receive the highest pay levels (Carlo Borzaga and Ermanno Tortia 2006).

The current discourse says that collaborative models become detached from traditional forms of organization because they accrete the autonomy and peripheral competencies (of the partners) under the banner of a common goal (e.g., the setting up of a ‘one-stop desk’ to provide advice to businesses) (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

Partnerships are expected to realize goals beyond the reach of unilateral action (Entwistle, Bristow, Hines, Donaldson, & Martin, 2007), goals that range from the possibility of mobilizing critical masses of resources to the achievement of economies of scale to extending the service offering or to increasing third-party negotiating power (e.g., with suppliers) (Ferro et al., 2004) (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

We need to acknowledge that cooperation can be found also in informal contexts, as we are taught by the well-known example of Barnard (1938), taken from Simon, Thompson, and Smithburg (1991), of the two men rolling a stone that neither could have moved alone (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

Coordination may be achieved by standardization; this involves the establishment of routines or rules (Thompson 1967, p.56) (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

The peculiar fact that, while in the past collaboration between the institutions was seen as an opportunity, today cooperation is seen as fundamental (Fedele & Moini, 2006). The Italian government oblige the local administrations to pursue institutional cooperation or lose the co-financing awarded to their innovation projects (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

The agreement forged between the CSI and the majority of the local administrations aims mainly to rationalize existing resources and prevent the dispersal of government funds allocated to Piedmont (€3 million) in a maze of uncoordinated micro-initiatives, where the amounts would shrink (to roughly €3000 per municipality) and, therefore, would do little to help solve the problem for which the funds had actually been provided (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

The setting up of a team of “facilitators” to assist the municipalities’ administrations, not only with technical glitches, but also their innovation effort, is a clear sign that CSI wants to promote a culture oriented to the building of a collaborative advantage. This is intended to be a “synergy between collaborating organizations” (Huxham, 1993) (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

An interpretive key that adopts the conceptual frameworks offered by organization science, and especially by the Theory of Organizational Action (TOA) (Maggi, 1990, 2003), enables us to explain Piedmont’s choice in relation to its two main goals. The first is that of facilitating the coordination of interdependent local administrations: sharing the same application solutions translates into the creation of standard rules and common practices that steer the action of the municipalities in the provision of services. That form of coordination is not only less costly than the others, but also makes it possible to evaluate and compare the provinces, for example, by measuring the level of use of the e-services and the state of the work in progress (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

At the policy level, the allocation of financial resources for the implementation of E-Government systems may be adopted to provide clear incentive structures. In other words, the process of resource allocation may be used as an important lever to reward collaborative behaviours by making them economically convenient (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

At the organizational level, the use of a representative system (through the establishment of different forms of collaboration or clustering) may be considered to reduce the coordination complexity and to make information flow more effectively among institutions (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

At the technological level, the central administrative level (in this case the regional government) plays a key role in promoting the “reuse” of existing solutions. This, in fact, allows fostering—the standardization of processes, positive externalities deriving from higher degrees of interoperability, and cost savings due to the exploitation of economies of scale (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

The presence of a central complementary coordination activity may be justified in a number of ways, including the following: providing a more effective allocation of financial resources, and establishing the definition of standards necessary to guarantee interoperability among public agencies (Enrico Ferro & Maddalena Sorrentino 2009).

While the motivation problem can be addressed through mechanisms like incentives or identification with the larger organization (Kogut & Zander, 1996; Simon, 1991) the resulting efforts at collaboration may still be ineffective because of coordination failures (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

Coordination is distinct from cooperation (Camerer & Knez, 1996, 1997; Gulati et al., 2005; Heath & Staudenmayer, 2000). In essence, the problem of cooperation (aligning interests) is a problem of motivation, and can be alleviated if not resolved through incentives. In contrast, coordination problems (aligning actions) are fundamentally cognitive in origin, and require shared understanding and common ground to be solved (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

Members of differentiated organizational units are likely to experience coordination difficulties because they belong to distinct “thought worlds”, with mutually incompatible representations, language, interpersonal and time orientations (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Dougherty, 1992). Communication across differentiated units is likely to be less effective, because individuals may not even recognize the need for communication, and encounter translation problems when they do communicate (Heath and Staudenmeyer, 2000) (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

The use of language itself is a coordination problem, which may not be solved unless there exists some commonly shared knowledge about conventions of usage and meaning (Bechky, 2003; Clark, 1996) (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

This difference in the productivity of collaboration and production bears some resemblance to the problem of multi-tasking: faced with multiple tasks, employees may allocate their hard-to-observe efforts to tasks in a manner that is optimal for them, but not necessarily for the employer (Baker & Gibbons, 1994; Holmstrom & Milgrom, 1991) (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

Prior literature suggests a number of mechanisms that explicitly aim to build common knowledge and shared understanding across units (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Dougherty, 1992) like the rotation of employees between units (Edstrom & Galbraith, 1977), multi-skilling (Shaw, Gupta& Delery, 2001), standardization of language (Kogut and Zander, 1996) and procedures (Mintzberg, 1980) as well as process structures that force interaction across unit boundaries, for example, membership in cross-unit teams (Nadler and Tushman, 1997), or in strategic planning processes (Ketokivi & Castaner, 2004) (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

Treating inter-unit collaboration within complex organizations purely as a problem of motivating cooperation (thus ignoring coordination) is dangerous. Collaborative incentives are one specific mechanism that motivates efforts towards collaboration at the expense of production; but given constraints on cognitive and material resources, other mechanisms such as cross-unit teams, standardization, employee rotation, or even creating a “culture of collaboration” may have similar effects (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

Intrinsic motivation may arise from enjoying the work itself, or from a feeling of satisfaction at having contributed to a collective enterprise (Osterloh & Frey, 2000; Williamson, 1985) or having collaborated with somebody with whom a history of prior relationship is shared (Tobias Kretschmer & Phanish Puranam).

These same highly collaborative workers, especially younger workers, are likely to be harder to attract and retain than ever—in part because of their technology experience and their insistence on using it. They are likely to expect a set of communications and collabora­tion tools in the workplace that are equivalent to the social networking tools, search engines, e-mail capacity or other capabilities they have at home (IBM 2008).

Many companies want to innovate—but not all understand the importance of collaboration to making innovation possible. Many are hobbled by old con­cepts of collaboration that can slow their success. People in the company may, for example, consider collaboration to be extra work. But to today’s innovative worker, collaboration is what work is all about. People make themselves valuable by seeking opportunities to work with others and tapping into the expertise that others possess (IBM 2008).

CoPs

The experience shows that to seek efficiency, and in coherence with the typical functional organisation, the different departments, hierarchical levels, geographical locations, and business processes tend to become knowledge islands characterised by specific and, sometimes, idiosyncratic backgrounds, languages, values, procedures, etc. To bridge such islands and, by this way, promote knowledge sharing, learning, and innovation, several multinationals have favoured the deliberate creation of internal CoPs (Davis et al., 2005; Archer, 2006; Dubè et al., 2006) (Scarso & Bolisani 2007).

1. 4. PARTIES PRENANTES & OUTCOMES

Outcomes

• Public value

Public value in cross-sector collaborations is most likely created by making use of each sector’s characteristic strengths while also finding ways to minimize, overcome, or compensate for each sector’s characteristic weaknesses (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• First-, second-, and third-order effects

First positive effect: creation of social, intellectual, and political capital; high-quality agreements; and innovative strategies (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Second positive effect: new partnerships, coordination and joint action, joint learning that extends beyond the collaborative, implementation of agreements, changes in practices, and changes in perceptions (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Third positive effect: new collaborations; more co-evolution and less destructive conflict among partners; results on the ground, such as the adaptation of services, resources, cities, and regions; new institutions; new norms and social heuristics for addressing public problems; and new modes of discourse (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

• Resilience and reassessment

Cross-sector collaborations are most likely to create public value when they are resilient and engage in regular reassessments (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

1. 5. MESURES DE PERFORMANCE

Accountability

Cross-sector collaborations are more likely to be successful when they have an accountability system that tracks inputs, processes, and outcomes; use a variety of methods for gathering, interpreting, and using data; and use a results management system that is built on strong relationships with key political and professional constituencies (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Summary and Research Agenda

The normal expectation ought to be that success will be very difficult to achieve in cross-sector collaborations (John M . Bryson, Barbara C . Crosby & Melissa Middleton Stone 2006).

Managers must identify sequential, cause-and-effect relationships among environmental, management, and performance outcomes to “match internal features” with an uncertain and changing external environment (Luthans and Stewart 1997; Scott and Davis 2006) (Fawcett, Magnan and McCarter 2008).

An appropriate contingent response helps firms improve performance in a dynamic environment through collaborative resource utilization across SC participants, which is enabled by better information sharing, proactive people development, appropriate performance measurement, SC rationalization, and trust-base SC relationships (Funk 1995; Hammer and Champy 1993; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967; Stonebraker and Afifi 2004) (Fawcett, Magnan and McCarter 2008).

Barrières et échecs

The most prevalent barriers to collaboration are inadequate information sharing, turf conflicts and inconsistent metrics (Barrat 2004a; Moberg et al. 2003; Tyndall et al. 1998). The result: most companies struggle to implement initiatives that lead to real and effective collaboration with SC partners (Fawcett, Magnan and McCarter 2008).

A jurisdiction has little desire to relinquish control over policy decisions to larger regional authorities or higher levels of government, particularly if it affects land use or the ability of officials to shape development (Gerber & Gibson, 2005) (Hawkins 2010).

Coordination problems arise when the potential joint gains from agreements are not clearly evident. Uncertainty and incomplete information on the future positions of other actors increase the difficulty of coordinating agreements (Hawkins 2010).

A division problem occurs when agreement on the goals for the cooperative effort is reached, but conflict over the distribution of benefits remains (Hawkins 2010).

The lack of coordination of military and state and local emergency management efforts was attributed to the fact that the Northern Command was not connected to state emergency management structures prior to the disaster. As a result, there was a lack of understanding and trust (Waugh and Streib 2006).

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Open Versus Closed Innovation: A Model Of Discovery And Divergence:

Result 1: Suppose that it is not possible to change partners (either it is too costly or there are no other potential partners with whom to do business). Then open innovation leads to better performance than closed innovation when complexity is low.

Result 2: Suppose that it is possible to change partners. Then as the partner opportunity set expands, so does the minimum level of complexity such that open innovation leads to better performance than closed innovation.

Assimilation Of Interorganizational Business Process Standards:

The literature on standards suggests that standards development tends to be controlled by dominant firms that often impose their own standards on their nondominant counterparts (David and Steinmueller 1994, Jacobs 2000)

Gilbert (2005) classified the structure of inertia into two distinct categories: resource and routine rigidities. Resource and routine rigidities are a firm’s inability or failure to change.

As we noted at the outset, more than 60% of firms still conduct interorganizational transactions through manual processes (e.g., phone, fax, e-mail) and disconnected IT systems (e.g., spreadsheet), resulting in process inefficiency and suboptimal performance (see Wailgum 2006).

Shared Leadership In Teams: An Investigation Of Antecedent Conditions And Performance:

Katz and Kahn (1978) also suggested that when team members voluntarily and spontaneously offer their influence to others in support of shared goals, shared leadership can provide organizations with competitive advantage through increases in commitment, in the personal and organizational resources brought to bear on complex tasks, in openness to reciprocal influence from others, and in the sharing of information.

Shared leadership is related to but distinct from other team processes such as cooperation or helping, which refer to team members working with and/or assisting other team members with their tasks (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003). Although these types of behavior relate to being an effective team member and promote efficiency, they do not involve the active influence that is essential to leadership. In keeping with this conceptualization, a recent study showed only a moderate correlation between shared leadership and cooperation or helping (Ziegert, 2005).

Les 4 hypothèses suivantes sont supportées:
Hypothesis 1. An internal team environment consisting of shared purpose, social support, and voice is positively related to the level of shared leadership in a team.

Hypothesis 2. External team coaching is positively related to the level of shared leadership in a team.

Hypothesis 3. Team coaching by an external leader interacts with the internal team environment in predicting shared leadership: coaching is more strongly related to shared leadership when the internal team environment is unsupportive.

Hypothesis 4. The degree of shared leadership in a team is positively related to team performance.

First, we examined antecedent conditions for shared leadership and found that a team’s internal environment and coaching by an external leader are important precursors for shared leadership. Second, our findings show that coaching provided by an external team leader is particularly important for the development of shared leadership when teams lack a strong internal team environment. Third, the findings extend previous research suggesting positive effects of shared leadership on team performance using a network-based measure of shared leadership that better captures the patterns of mutual influence inherent in the construct and a measure of performance that is less subject to common source variance and rating biases.

We found that when a team has an internal environment characterized by a clear and unifying direction that is well understood within the team, a strong sense of interpersonal support whereby team members feel recognized and encouraged, and a high level of voice and involvement within the team, it is able to develop a leadership network characterized by high levels of mutual influence and sharing of leadership responsibilities.

When an internal team environment is supportive, coaching by the external leader is less critical for the emergence of shared leadership; however, when an internal team environment is unsupportive, coaching interventions are important for filling a role that is not being filled by the team (cf. Hackman & Walton, 1986).

Knowledge Portfolios And The Organization Of Innovation Networks:

There is an optimal distance in knowledge space, and the likelihood of forming an alliance falls as a pair of firms moves away from it.

Top Management Incentive Compensation And Knowledge Sharing In Multinational Corporations:

One of the key reasons for potentially inefficient knowledge sharing in MNCs is that the interests of subsidiaries and MNC headquarters are often not totally aligned.

Les hypothèses suivantes sont supportées:

Hypothesis 1a: The higher the percentage of compensation for subsidiary general managers that is based on the performance of the entire MNC, the greater will be the subsidiary’s knowledge sharing with other parts of the MNC.
Hypothesis 1b: The higher the percentage of compensation for other subsidiary top management (excluding the general manager) that is based on the performance of the entire MNC, the greater will be the subsidiary’s knowledge sharing with other parts of the MNC.

Hypothesis 2: The more the subsidiary has a shared vision with other corporate units, the higher will be the subsidiary’s knowledge sharing with other parts of the MNC.

Alliance Networks And Firm Performance: The Impact Of Repeated Partnerships:

Yet prior research has observed that organizations often enter into alliances repeatedly with partners from previous ventures since the trust that develops between them may reduce transaction costs (Dyer and Chu, 2003; Gulati, 1995a, 1995b; Podolny, 1994; Walker, Kogut, and Shan, 1997).

Les hypothèses et leurs résultats:

Hypothesis 1: Firms that have a greater propensity to enter into repeated relations with prior partners experience superior economic performance.

Hypothesis 2: Firms that have a greater propensity to enter into repeated relations with prior partners experienceinferior economic performance.

Hypothesis 3: Firms in environments of higher technical uncertainty that have a greater propensity to enter into repeated relations with prior partners experience inferior economic performance.

As shown in Table 5, the structural path from Repeated Partnerships to Economic Performance is negative and statistically significant (γ = −0.27, p < 0.01). This result provides strong support for Hypothesis 2, thus disconfirming Hypothesis 1.

As shown in Table 6, which reports that specific interaction, in environ- ments of low Technical Uncertainty the relation- ship between Repeated Partnerships and Economic Performance is negative but not statistically significant (γ = −0.14, p > 0.1). On the other hand, there is a negative and highly statistically significant relationship between a firm’s propensity to enter into repeated alliances with prior partners and its performance in environments of high Technical Uncertainty (γ = −0.52, p < 0.001). These results provide support for Hypothesis 3.

In Pursuit Of Inter-Agency Collaroration In The Purlic Sector:

Four pitfalls of individualisation:

1. Repetition: where two or more organizations separately carry out an action or
task which need only be done by one.

2. Omission: where activities which are important to the objectives of more than
one organization are not carried out. This may occur because they have not been
identified as important, because they come into no organization’s remit or
because each organization assumes the other is performing the activity.

3. Divergence: the actions of the various organizations may become diffused across a
range of activities, rather than used towards common goals.

4. Counter-production: organizations working in isolation may take actions which
confiict with those taken by others.

From the point of view of individual organizations, collaboration may pose a threat.
Hudson (1987) identifies two main difficulties: each individual agency loses some of its
freedom to act independently, when it may prefer to maintain control over its own
affairs; and each must invest scarce resources in developing relationships with other
organizations when the potential return on the investment is often unclear and
intangible.

Whatever type of collaborative relationship is entered into, a balance will need to be drawn between accountability of the partners to their respective parent organizations and to the collaborative forum itself. Huxbam and Vangen (1994) use the term ‘collaborative inertia’ to describe a situation in which the apparent rate of work output from a core group is much less than might be expected, and tbey relate this to ideas about accountability and reduced autonomy.

The authors further argue that the frustration created by this ‘collaborative inertia’ may lead those involved to give up – a state they depict as ‘collaborative fatigue’. Such a state of affairs can arise from the position described by Hardy et al. (1992) in which the distance between parent organizations and joint projects becomes so great that the latter end up in an ‘organisational limbo’ (p. 219). The dilemma then, is to accord members of collaborative forums as much power to act in the interests of the collaborative endeavour as is consistent with the interests of the parent organizations. This is a difficult judgement to reach, but without it, the effects of collaborative inertia and collaborative fatigue may undermine the entire relationship.

The Effects Of Conflict Asymmetry On Work Group And Individual Outcomes:

In a study of 167 individuals in 51 work groups, we found support for the hypothesis that when a group’s members perceive different levels of conflict, demonstrating group conflict asymmetry, performance and creativity in that group are decreased. At the individual level, we found that conflict asymmetry exceeded the traditionally studied effects of mean group conflict level in predicting individual outcomes such as satisfaction with a team and reported performance. Members who perceived less conflict than other group members were more satisfied and had more favorable perceptions of their performance than members who perceived more conflict than others in their group.

Knowledge Integration And Information Technology Project Performance:

Our study yielded four main findings. First, we find that management’s access to external knowledge significantly increases the likelihood of on-time project completion. The strength of this relationship is strong for both sets of respondents, with a high degree of reliability, providing solid support for our first hypothesis.

Second, we find that management’s ability to integrate internal knowledge also increases the probability of on-time completion. As an IT platform evolves and the breadth of technologies increases, more specialized knowledge is needed to develop and manage those technologies and dependent work processes. Through coordinated planning, knowledge specific to IT and organizational processes is pooled and synthesized into a common body of knowledge.

As a predictor of on-time project completion, internal knowledge integration is more reliable at the corporate level than at the facility level.

We conclude that management’s integrative capability can improve the probability of on-time project completion by reducing the duration of IT delay. Thus, our first research question is answered affirmatively.

Our findings indicate that integrative dimension is a significant predictor of on-time project completion, and a key indicator of underutilized knowledge channels.

Our study also suggests that important perceptual differences exist between managers at different levels, which should be taken into account when assessing integrative capabilities in organizations using a federal management structure.

Is Application Capabilities And Relational Value In Interfirm Partnerships:

Les hypothèses et les résultats (toutes supportées sauf H1A et H2B):

Hypothesis 1A (H1A). Knowledge sharing with customers positively affects BU performance. (NON SUPPORTÉE)

Hypothesis 1B (H1B). Knowledge sharing with channel partners positively affects BU performance.

Hypothesis 2A (H2A). Process coupling with customers positively affects BU performance.

Hypothesis 2B (H2B). Process coupling with channel partners positively affects BU performance. (NON SUPPORTÉE)

Hypothesis 3A (H3A). IS integration positively affects process coupling with customers.

Hypothesis 3B (H3B). IS integration positively affects process coupling with channel partners.

Hypothesis 4A (H4A). IS integration positively affects knowledge sharing with customers.

Hypothesis 4B (H4B). IS integration positively affects knowledge sharing with channel partners.

Hypothesis 5A (H5A). IS flexibility positively affects IS integration with customers.

Hypothesis 5B (H5B). IS flexibility positively affects IS integration with channel partners.

Managing Peer-To-Peer Conflicts In Disruptive Information Technology Innovations: The Case Of Software Reuse:

Well-constituted reward mechanisms can also prove to be an effective form of agents’ self-regulation when tied to the behavior or outcomes desired (Eisenhardt 1985, 1989;
Levinthal 1988).In particular, incentive schemes in which (1) collective outcomes rather than individual outcomes are rewarded (Sharma and Yetton 2003), (2) upstream agent rewards are contingent on the work outcomes of the downstream agent (Itoh 1991, Sinclair Desgagne 1999), and (3) information sharing is rewarded (Sharma and Yetton 2003) are likely to prove most effective in reducing goal confiicts among inter-dependent agents.

Those companies (ITA Consulting and ITB Consulting) in which software reuse was viewed as a success achieved these benefits by creating a shared vision across all stakeholders that reuse was a sensible strategy for enhancing application development. Asset creators and asset users (along with other key stakeholders such as managers and clients) were sympathetic to the need to compromise transitory short-term benefits (populating an empty component archive and satisfying demanding clients) to achieve more enduring long-terms benefits associated with enhancing software development productivity through component-based development. On the other hand, software developers at companies in which reuse was viewed as a failure could not commit to the goal of developing systems with reuse. They perceived reuse as increasingly difficult to achieve, given their tactical focus on time to market. Establishment of such a shared vision (Swanson and Ramiller
1997) in the successful firms did not occur without considerable effort. Coordination strategies were developed and implemented, promoting the development and value of the repository of reusable components. Management intervened by monitoring work practices and by rewarding desired behaviors of asset creators and asset users. Formal and informal communication channels were established to facilitate the flow of information and transfer of knowledge between stakeholders. Finally, organizational leaming practices were
incorporated within the software reuse program to understand the nature and architecture of reusable assets within salient application domains, to refine work processes associated with both asset creation and asset usage, and to incorporate systematically the leaming gained through experience into more robust conceptualizations of reuse architectures, processes, and practices.

Fighting Against Windmills: Strategic Information Systems And Organizational Deep Structures:

In sum, we argue that the main attributes of SISs are (1) their focus on attaining organizational strategic (long term) objectives; (2) their radical impacts on an organization’s value chains or on an organization’s relationship with its environment; and (3) the acknowledgment by senior management of these long term objectives and radical impacts.

Ocde – E-Government For Better Government:

Relatively few countries are comfortable with a strongly unfocused communication approach, and those that adopt it (with the exception of New Zealand) allow considerable decision-making autonomy vertically, horizontally or both. Perhaps surprisingly, relatively few countries systematically pursue top-down uni-directional styles of communication with little participation in decision making. Even a country like Hungary, with a history of
centralisation, engages in sectoral decentralisation and a dual approach in order to separate government IT from information society issues.

The predominant trend for e-government decision making in OECD countries is to mix and match communication and decision-making modes. This is true both for the self-reported dimension of centralisation and decentralisation, and for the direction of communication and participation in decision-making. This may be due to political structures that encourage sub-national decision making (federally organised countries), practical administrative reasons (small administrative structures in countries with small populations; desire to change highly centralised older structures), or for efficiency reasons (previously fragmented policy making).

Moving Beyond Intentions And Toward The Theory Of Trying: Effects Of Work Environment And Gender On Post-Adoption Information Technology Use:

Innovation diffusion moves through at least four stages:

1- Adaption, where IT is modified to foster a better fit between individuals, organizations and/or IT applications

2 – Acceptance, where efforts focus on encouraging employees to commit to using an application

3 – Routinization, where alterations to the system ensure that IT is no longer perceived as new or out of the ordinary

4 – Infusion, where IT applications become deeply embedded within the organization’s work processes (Saga and Zmud 1994)

Saga and Zmud (1994) identify a range of dependent variables linked to IT’s infusion. They suggest infusion may be measured in three different ways:

1 – Extended use, where an individual uses a technology to complete a sophisticated array
of tasks

2 – Integrative use, which between different tasks reinforces links

3 – Emergent use where the technology is applied in an innovative manner to support new tasks (Agarwal 2000)

The componential approach to innovation suggests three factors influence innovation in organizations.

1 – Organizational motivation to innovate, which reflects the organization’s attitude and support of innovation

2 – Resources, referring to everything in the work environment such as time or work pressure that influences innovation

3 – Management practices, which refer to factors such as freedom or autonomy in the work environment (Amabile 1988)

Extensions of this model (Amabile et al. 1996) suggest that environmental components fall into two broad categories: impediments and stimulants. Impediments are obstacles such as overload or a lack of resources. Stimulants, on the other hand, refer to the presence of sufficient resources or control over basic job features such as scheduling or methods.

Influence Processes For Information Technology Acceptance: An Laboration Likelihood Model:

Our empirical findings demonstrate that the central and peripheral routes are both viable ways of influencing users to accept a new IT. In the central route, users engage in thoughtful processing of issue-relevant arguments embedded in an informational message, while in the peripheral route, they merely attend to cues about the message such as the credibility of the message source. These influence mechanisms shape users’ IT acceptance intention by modifying key perceptions salient to acceptance such as perceived usefulness and attitude.

Our results confirm that both influence routes are moderated by users’ motivation and ability to elaborate or process issue-relevant arguments. Users with higher elaboration motivation and ability tend to be more influenced by the central route, while those with lower motivation and ability are influenced by the peripheral route.

We also report that the central route results in more stable attitude and usefulness perceptions than the peripheral route, and hence is likely to have a longer-term impact on user acceptance decisions than the latter.

Innovation Steps In The Diffusion Of E-Customs Solutions:

In order to give a more specific framework for the diffusion of innovations, De Pietro et al. [cited in 28 and 38] introduced a model (TOE) that considers three elements for understanding technology adoption in an organizational context. The three elements are technology, organization, and environment:

1 – Technology. The model subsumes the five innovation attributes that Rogers argues influence the likelihood of adoption.

2 – Organization. Adoption propensity is influenced by formal and informal intraorganizational mechanism for communication and control.

3 – Environment. Organizational adoption of new technologies depends on having the prerequisite skills for effective deployment.

Reconceptualizing Compatibility Beliefs In Technology Acceptance Research:

We suggest that four dimensions reflect this definition: (1) compatibility with existing work practices, measuring the extent to which a technology “fits” with a user’s current work process; (2) compatibility with preferred work style, capturing the possibility offered by the technology of being consistent with a desired work style; (3) compatibility with prior experience, reflecting a fit between the target technology and a variety of users’ past encounters with technology; and (4) compatibility with values, epitomizing the match between the possibilities offered by the technology and the user’s dominant value system.

User Acceptance Of Information Technology: Toward A Unified View:

These tests provided strong empirical support for UTAUT, which posits three direct determinants of intention to use (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence) and two direct determinants of usage behavior (intention and facilitating conditions). Significant moderating influences of experience, voluntariness, gender, and age were confirmed as integral features of UTAUT. UTAUT was able to account for 70 percent of the variance (adjusted R^) in usage intention—a substantial improvement over any of the original eight models and their extensions. Further, UTAUT was successful In integrating key elements from among the initial set of 32 main effects and four moderators as determinants of intention and behavior collectively posited by eight alternate models into a model that
incorporated four main effects and four moderators.

Expectation Disconfirmation And Technology Adoption: Polynomial Modeling And Response Surface Analysis:

This model argues that both positive and negative disconfirmation of usefulness (or attitude) expectations would have a negative influence on the user’s behavioral intention to continue using a system. In the state of confirmation, there would be no adverse effect, thus resulting in higher levels of behavioral intention.

A Configurational Approach To Information Technology Outsourcing:

This finding implies that the strategic level of IT needs is negatively associated with the degree of outsourcing.

Government Accountability For Outsourced Services:

The disagreement, which has simmered along for almost a decade, shows no sign of resolution. The critics still point out, with apparently incontrovertible logic and evidence, that some aspects of accountability are definitely reduced under outsourcing (Mulgan 2003, ch 5; Barrett 2004).

Another relevant distinction is between various stages of accountability, in particular three stages of information, discussion and rectification (Mulgan 2003, 30). The meaning of these stages is fairly self-evident. Information refers to the obligation on the part of the person or organisation being held to account to answer questions and report about their activities. Discussion involves the further obligation to enter into a dialogue of explanation and justification in response to scrutiny. Rectification is the final stage set in motion when mistakes are made and includes the obligation to impose remedies and sanctions where necessary.

Critics have sometimes expressed the fear that once governments devolve responsibility for services to a separate organisation, governments will be able to engage in buck-passing and blame-shifting (eg Mulgan 1997, Funnell 2001, Hood 2002). When things go wrong, it is feared, the fact that service delivery is now in the hands of a contractor rather than the government will entitle ministers and government officials to refer any public anger over poor performance to the contractor.

By claiming to retain accountability, governments undertake to accept the same degree of political risk as before and not to pass the buck.

In the new environment of mixed public and private delivery of public functions, governments are aiming to choose the most efficient and effective means of delivery, whether through public agencies or through private contractors, depending on the circumstances of the individual case. Whatever structure is adopted, however, governments are still expected to retain ultimate accountability for all service provision.

As demonstrated, a claim of unaltered accountability in relation to outsourced service provision is not strictly accurate, because some aspects of accountability are inevitably reduced through the use of private contractors. But governments must still accept collective liability for praise or blame even though they have surrendered some mechanisms for maintaining control of the outcomes.

Personal responsibility for departmental actions is typically dispersed among the various members of the department, though they act within overall direction imposed from above. In contractual relationships, on the other hand, particularly for complex and politically sensitive services, government influence is pervasive among the staff of the contracting organisation even if the organisation that employs them is legally separate from government.

Outsourcing may weaken some aspects of public accountability, especially over inputs and processes. But government accountability for results brings increased control over private organisations who contract to provide public services.

Beginning with general accountability, in relation to these three stages, can ministers and officials (i) provide the same level of information, (ii) enter into the same degree of public discussion and explanation, and (iii) impose the same remedies and sanctions in relation to the overall performance of contractors as they could if the service were provided by officials in their own departments? The answer depends, to a certain extent, on the nature of the contract itself.

Outsourcing, Bureaucracy And Public Value: Reappraising The Notion Of The “Contract State”:

In fact, it relies upon the assumption that the bureaucratic organization has to be preserved as long as it is able to provide coordination better than alternative organizational structures, such as market-like organizations.

Incentives And The Efficiency Of Public Sector-Outsourcing Contracts:

The principal attempts to design a contract that allocates risk to the agent in an efficient manner, while providing appropriate incentives for performance.

On balance, the empirical evidence presented here suggests that outsourcing does generate reductions in government expenditure. But there a couple of important caveats to this conclusion. The first is that there is some evidence indicating that the quality of service may suffer in certain circumstances as a result of outsourcing and that workers may be worse off (at least in terms of their real wage). The second is that the savings may be transitory – although the empirical evidence is thin, there is some evidence to suggest that hold-up is a problem in outsourcing contracts.

Despite its importance as a public policy issue and the amount of research devoted to it, the determinants of successful public sector outsourcing are still largely unknown.

In particular, new evidence is emerging which suggests that intrinsic motivation may play an important role in determining the efficiency of contractual relationships.

First, incentives play an important role in the analysis, because transferring production from the public to the private sector involves a shift in the fundamental incentive structures faced by employees within organizations.

Second, risk is an important factor to consider, because uncertainty is a feature of most production environments and outsourcing necessitates consideration of how this risk will be allocated between the parties. While it is well established in the theoretical literature that transferring risk to an agent involves a trade-off with incentives, this insight has rarely been applied to the analysis of public sector outsourcing.

A Governance Model For Managing Outsourcing Partnerships:

According to recent studies the average size of the retained organization is between five and seven percent of the former IT organization [20].

A governance model provides an overarching structure which helps to support the business objectives of the customer on strategic, functional and operational level. The governance model defines “what to do”, “how to do it”, “who should do it” and “how it should be measured”. It addresses the rules, processes, metrics and organizational structures needed for effective planning, decision making, steering and control of the outsourcing engagement in order to mitigate the risk inherent in any outsourcing relationship.

The organizational structure comprises roles, functions and the necessary reporting and decision structure in the new organization. The organizational structure also clearly defines the responsibilities for dedicated topics on outsourcer and service provider side. There will be proprietary responsibilities for certain topics on each side and also joint responsibilities.

The success of the overall outsourcing transaction will considerably depend on how well both parties are capable of covering the required roles, establishing joint structures and building up joint processes at both ends of the two organizations. Therefore, the “right
team” at the “right levels” in the respective organizations will be the cornerstone for building strong, long-term relationships at all levels.

Critical to the success of the mentioned structures and processes is an effective communication among all parties based on a collaborative relationship. Relationship management is an integral part of each governance model. A recent study [8] has shown that more than 50% of the alliances fail due to relationship issues and not because of bad contracts or financial issues.

The Politics Of Outsourcing: Bureaucrats, Vendors, And Public Information Technology (It) Projects:

One study found that organizations with revenues between $500 million and $3 billion already outsource between 23% and 30% of their IT functionality and plan to outsource over 50% of their IT needs by the year 2,000.

Bureaucrat and vendor cooperate – or compete – with each other in every political, organizational, and technological dimension of the project.

Bureaucrats possess extensive administrative and managerial backgrounds, are motivated by the desire to move up the bureaucratic ladder, remain loyal to their organization and are subject to the public code of ethics. Typically, they engage the project as one of many administrative chores and refer to their managers for advice and guidance. They also view themselves as guardians of the broader public interest and are subject to harsh public criticism if they do not behave accordingly [60, p. 99].

IT vendors have extensive technological training and experience and are motivated by the desire to maximize profit and acquire new technical skills. They are neither loyal to their client public organization nor do they share values with it. They engage the project on a short-term contractual basis that defines their obligations and compensation. They revere – and consider themselves part of – the new nomadic global class of high tech mercenaries who move rapidly between lucrative contractual assignments. They seek to serve the more
profitable segments of society and pay little attention to the social consequences of their actions. Indeed, sometimes bureaucrats behave like “entrepreneurial heroes” and vendors behave like bureaucrats [9].

The political reality of the public IT projects is even more complex than the technology. Sometimes, the vendor works as an insider while the Ministry’s MIS shop competes with vendors for a piece of the project. Frequently, complex bureaucrat-vendor hierarchies emerge. For example, an external consultant might manage bureaucrats who, in turn, supervise the work of other vendors. The project’s technological know-how is distributed among its participants. Each bureaucrat and vendor possesses the means to shelter its core technology from other project participants and will share it for an ownership stake in the
project [12, p. 91].

These cases also reveal how vendors exert great influence over the project’s agenda while working as insiders (Jerusalem’s Automation Company).

Frequently, IT outsourcing is portrayed as a game of risks and rewards. The bureaucrat assumes the risk of, and responsibility for, letting vendors take over IT functions. In return, the bureaucrat is rewarded with cheaper to maintain, more reliable, and effective IT systems and time to focus on the core activities he or she knows how to do well.

Performance Effects Of Information Technology Synergies In Multibusiness Firms:

While the sub-additive cost synergies arising from the relatedness of IT resources do not have independent performance effects on their own (Figure 2), the super-additive value synergies arising from the complementarity of IT resources have significant effects on
corporate performance (Figure 1).

Want Collaboration?:

An effective incentive system will ensure collaboration:

It’s a tantalizing proposition; You can hardwire collaboration into your organization by rewarding collaborative behavior. Salespeople receive bonuses not only for hitting targets for their own division’s products but also for hitting cross-selling targets. Staff in corporate support functions like IT and procurement have part of their bonuses determined by positive feedback from their internal clients.

Unfortunately, the results of such programs are usually disappointing. Despite greater financial incentives, for example, salespeople continue to focus on the sales of their own products to the detriment of selling integrated solutions. Employees continue to perceive the IT and procurement departments as difficult to work with, too focused on their own priorities. Why such poor results? To some extent, it’s because individuals think-for the most part correctly-that if they perform well in their own operation they will be “taken care of” by their bosses. In addition, many people find that the costs of working with individuals in other parts of the organization-the extra time required, the aggravation-greatly outweigh the rewards fordoing so. Certainly, misaligned incentives can be a tremendous obstacle to cross-boundary collaboration. But even the most carefully constructed incentives won’t eliminate tensions between people with competing business objectives. An incentive is too blunt an instrument to enable optimal resolution of the hundreds of different trade-offs that need to be made in a complex organization. What’s more, overemphasis on incentives can create a culture in which people say, “If the company wanted me to do that, they would build it into my comp plan.” Ironically, focusing on incentives as a means to encourage collaboration can end up undermining it.

Knowledge Sharing In Public Sector Organizations: The Effect Of Organizational Characteristics On Interdepartmental Knowledge Sharing:

The specific values in public sector organizations have strong implications for organization design (Hood 1991; Posner and Schmidt 1996). The relatively high importance of values such as honesty, fairness, and equity compared to more economic and parsimonious values, such as cost control and goal orientedness, demands a fundamentally different design.

Public sector organizations differ from private sector organizations in the ambiguity of goals, the difference in environment, and the difference in political influences—differences that influence the design of public sector organizations; however, even within the public sector, these aspects vary greatly (Heffron 1989).

We thus distinguished between formal and informal coordination. Formal coordination can be further divided into two categories based on the extent to which coordination plans and programs the tasks in advance of the task execution. Hence, first, there are formal systems that consist of any kind of coordination that is planned and formally established, such as formal procedures, rules, manuals, and formal processes. Second, there is lateral coordination that is also formal but not planned in advance. This coordination is used when needed during task execution. Examples are teamwork, liaison roles, task groups, and mutual adjustment. The third category includes all informal coordination.

Hence, there are two kinds of organizational characteristics influencing interdepartmental
knowledge sharing. One group, the coordination mechanisms, literally coordinates people’s tasks and makes cooperative episodes possible. This group includes the formal systems, lateral coordination, and informal networks. The other group creates context by tuning expectations and by establishing a willingness to engage in cooperative episodes.
This group refers to identification, trust, and a lack of power games.

One possible explanation of lower identification in public sector organizations might be the impossibility of employees in public sector organizations of identifying with the final service delivered and the impossibility of observing a relationship between employees’ contributions and the performance of the organization (Boyne 2002; Perry and Porter 1982). This effect will be mostly present in the ‘‘pure’’ public sector organizations or the government institutions.

We can therefore conclude that formal systems were not the main obstacle to knowledge sharing and that they were not even dominant in our broad sample of cooperative episodes in public sector organizations. In short, our sample did not reveal negative bureaucratic effects on knowledge sharing, even when we limited our sample to cooperative episodes in government institutions—the pure public organizations according to Fottler (1981).

Lateral coordination was very important for the intensity and effectiveness of knowledge sharing (parameter estimate 5 0.157 and 0.182, respectively). Lateral coordination not only had a significant positive impact on intensity and effectiveness of knowledge sharing but also influenced many other variables, resulting in a strong indirect effect of lateral coordination on the knowledge-sharing variables. Although lateral coordination was necessary for knowledge sharing, it also had a negative effect via formal systems, decreasing knowledge sharing. Apparently, formal systems were necessary to support the working of lateral coordination.

Our study confirmed the dominant positive impact of trust on the knowledge-sharing variables, which has been recognized in several other studies. It was trust that was important, not as part of informal or lateral coordination or developed through identification. Not only would people share more knowledge in an environment of trust but also knowledge sharing would be more effective. Power games and trust correlated strongly negative, as expected. Although power games had unexpectedly no direct effect on the knowledge-sharing variables, it had a strong indirect effect through trust. Hence, power games and trust could be seen as two polar variables that characterize the organizational climate with more power games and low trust at one end and fewer power games and high trust at the other end, with less and more knowledge sharing, respectively.

However, a much larger danger rested in the fewer incentives to stimulate cooperative
behavior in government institutions. Although the impact of government institutions versus other public sector organizations on incentives was not very strong (parameter estimate 5 ÿ0.097) (see table 1), the combination of low identity and low incentives could result in a serious lower level of knowledge-sharing effectiveness. Incentives based on intrinsic and extrinsic rewards have been indicated in the literature as very important for the level of organizational commitment (including identity) among public sector employees (Khojasteh 1993; Young, Worchel, and Woehr 1998). This was confirmed in our study. Respondents reported lower identification, together with few incentives, for cooperative behavior and less lateral coordination. Values of the three correlated variables were all lower in the cooperative episodes in government institutions. Cooperative behavior and knowledge sharing were not yet recognized as important, or at least, they were not much formally encouraged in the organizations in our sample. The incentives had a positive impact on identity and also on trust. Hence, through the direct and indirect effects, knowledge-sharing effectiveness could be greatly influenced by more incentives.

The Politics Of Outsourcing: Bureaucrats, Vendors, And Public Information Technology (It) Projects:

Nonetheless, IT projects are becoming more complex and bureaucrats cannot be expected to keep up with technological developments. Under such conditions, vendors will exert an increasing amount of political influence over public IT projects in the future. If bureaucrats do not adjust to this new environment, we may end up with ever more spectacular public IT failures.

Innovation Type And Diffusion: An Empirical Analysis Of Local Government:

Three types of innovation are identified in the literature: product, process and ancillary.

The distinction between product and process innovation originated in Schumpeter ’s work – a product being a new good or quality of a good and process a new method of production (Archibugi et al. 1994).

What distinguishes an ancillary innovation from product and process innovation is that the successful adoption of ancillary innovations is dependent on factors outside an organization’s control. Ancillary innovations are concerned with working across boundaries with other service providers, users or other public agencies and thus their successful implementation is reliant upon others. Ancillary innovations illustrate the overlap- ping nature of these concepts: a new service (product innovation) could be developed in partnership with other actors, including users or other public, voluntary or private organizations; alternatively, new governance arrangements (process innovations) could be put in place for a public organization that involves partner or user agencies undertaking joint decision making.

Environmental variables influenced the adoption ancillary: partnership, organizational and technological: market orientation innovations. Organizational variables predicted the adoption of new product, technological: ITC and organizational while diffusion variables assisted in explaining variance in all the innovation type models bar organizational innovations.

Information Technology Governance In Information Technology Investment Decision Processes: The Impact Of Investment Characteristics, External Environment, And Internal Context:

Voici les 7 chemins pré-adoption et leurs descriptions:

Les états analysés sont: initation – developpement – proposition

Actors can be of four types: top management (TM), IT professionals (ITP), the administrative
group (AG), and healthcare professionals (HCP). To identify

1 – Top Management Monarchy: The TM–TM–TM path is named as top management monarchy because top management controls every stage of the decision-making process.

2 – Top Management–IT Duopoly: The top management–IT duopoly archetype represents the TM–ITP–TM decision path, in which top management initiates the investment project and IT professionals develop the proposal.

3 – IT Monarchy: The ITP–ITP–TM decision path is called IT monarchy, suggesting that IT professionals initiate and develop proposals with top management making the final decision.

4 – Administration Monarchy: The administration monarchy archetype represents an AG–AG–TM decision path.

5 – Administration–IT Duopoly: The administration–IT duopoly governance archetype denotes an AG–ITP–TM decision path, indicating that the investment proposal is initiated by administrative department managers, developed by IT professionals, and approved by top management.

6 – Professional Monarchy: The professional monarchy archetype depicts the HCP–HCP–TM decision path, where healthcare professionals initiate and develop IT investment proposals.

7 – Professional–IT Duopoly: We use professional–IT duopoly to describe the HCP–ITP–TM decision path.

As the five propositions demonstrate, no IT governance archetype can be sufficiently predicted by a single factor.