This article introduces the special issue on collaboration. It addresses the various perspectives on intra- and interorganizational collaboration, highlighting tensions, both in practice and research. It then presents the articles composing this special issue.

In this paper, we present and discuss the notion of interorganizational synthesis. Interorganizational synthesis refers to synthesis in the relationships between all organizations involved in a collaborative project. Synthesis is critical if organizations are fully to leverage the benefits of interorganizational collaboration in complex environments. Reviewing other research in management, in areas such as culture, rationality, and language, we show that collaboration is a far more complex task than economic or contractual theories suggest. We then present ten critical building blocks that must be accounted for in the design of interorganizational relations if synthesis is to be realised. Each of these blocks is discussed and the potential risks, and management implications, are also presented.

This paper begins from the stance that the "meaning" of collaborations, alliances or any social relationships is not automatically shared by all partners in such relationship and, indeed may, in some instances, be incomprehensible to one or more parties. This lack of a common meaning derives from the specificity of cultural constructions overlying a commonality of evolved psychological mechanisms. By drawing extensively on anthropological theory, I construct a preliminary model to both explain this lack of common meaning, and show why certain specific safeguards identified by other researchers on alliances and collaborations are so important in collaborative relationships.

This paper explores collaboration in one innovative project in a production company. The focus is on one particular relationship - that between change agents and project participants with the emphasis on the relations of power between the life forms of ordinary project participants and the change discourse applied. Drawing on Wittgenstein's concept of "language games" and Foucault's concept of "power", this case demonstrates how the change discourse constructs its own image of who the participants are, and how these constructions shape the main content of the change project. Rather than becoming employee-driven and guided with reference to employee identities and life forms, project participants and project activities are constructed by concepts, methods and techniques that are opposed to the extant identities and life forms within the company.

L'objectif de cet article est de montrer que les logiques de calcul et de construction identitaire sont intimement liées dans les rapports coopératifs au sein d'équipes projet. Pour cela, nous avons construit deux formes de coopération en se fondant sur une dichotomie classique en sciences sociales. La coopération complémentaire se développe dans une rationalité calculatoire du fait du besoin de ressources complémentaires, où des engagements interindividuels assurent la congruence des intérêts individuels. L'école des relations humaines et les théories de l'identification sociale dénoncent la sous-socialisation de la coopération complémentaire. Une forme de coopération, que nous avons qualifiée de communautaire, peut apparaître. Cette coopération est fondée sur l'existence d'un processus d'identification sociale, où les individus s'identifient aux attributs qu'ils perçoivent comme communs aux membres du groupe. Si ces deux formes de coopération s'opposent quant à leur fondement et leur organisation, le processus coopératif s'avère ambivalent. Nous proposons alors une reconceptualisation de la coopération en définissant trois dimensions transversales. A travers l'étude approfondie de deux équipes projet, nous explorons le contenu de chaque dimension transversale aux deux formes de coopération. Cette analyse permet de définir des modalités de génération d'une forme de coopération par une autre dans le cas d'équipes projets ; ces modalités de passage d'une coopération à une autre relèvent pour chaque dimension du même mécanisme. L'ambiguïté quant à la finalité de l'action coopérative permet la variance des schémas interprétatifs, facilite la construction de compromis, et ainsi le passage d'une forme de coopération à une autre. La définition progressive, dans l'action, par les acteurs de leur fonction et statut dans le groupe, dans une dynamique d'enrôlement, constitue un deuxième mécanisme récursif de génération d'une forme de coopération par une autre. Enfin, les normes du périmètre du collectif et leur variation impactent les modes d'engagements interindividuels en définissant ce qui est hors du groupe et ce qui est dans le groupe ; le directeur de projet a un rôle central dans sa définition et sa variation et ainsi dans le passage entre les deux coopérations.

Comment et dans quelles circonstances un individu acquiert-il le sentiment de faire partie d'une équipe ? Ce sentiment se traduit-il par une volonté de coopérer avec les autres membres ? Pour répondre à ce questionnement, cet article s'appuie sur la théorie de l'identité sociale et son prolongement, la théorie de la catégorisation sociale, ainsi que sur des travaux plus récents issus de ces courants qui approfondissent la question de l'influence des processus d'identification sur les pratiques de coopération. Ces grilles de lecture conceptuelles sont mobilisées pour analyser et discuter les résultats d'une recherche longitudinale, multi-sites et multi-méthodes qui s'est déroulée de novembre 1997 à mars 1999 au sein d'une entreprise du secteur électronique. Les résultats, fondés sur la comparaison de différentes équipes opérationnelles, permettent de mieux comprendre comment se déroule le processus d'identification, l'évolution au fil du temps du potentiel de coopération qui en découle, ainsi que l'influence du design de l'équipe sur les pratiques de coopération. Ces résultats sont discutés et des pistes de recherche sont proposées en conclusion.

This paper examines the role of structural embeddedness as an organising phenomenon within interdependent networks. While conceptual and philosophical in nature, data from a longitudinal ethnographic case study of an icon tourism destination is used to illustrate new framings of this concept. This method of research enables deeper insights to be attained that add both explanation and understanding to our current appreciation of the interdependent organizing phenomena. The case data illustrate how the network has structural attributes of heterogeneity, interconnection and reciprocity that contribute to its anti-hierarchical state. This enables an infinite number of structural possibilities to occur, some of which can be developed to form strategic capabilities that belong to the network. Assisting this process, is a symbiotic and mutual participation from the interdependent actors which critiques the notion of structural redundancy. The paper illustrates how the aggregated patterns have formed in the network and how reciprocal obligation has built long term exchange patterns that contribute to forming the embedded macroculture.

The current article considers the importance of the links existing between social relations and relations of trust, on the one hand, and economic and business relations on the other, in networks of firms, particularly networks of small firms that have formed involuntarily. Among these links, it is important to discover the way tacit and explicit information flows are established within the network and the conditions for them to occur. We examine these questions in a network of firms from the shoe industry using the methods and concepts of social network analysis. With this in mind, we have analysed the complex network of small firms by breaking it down into subnetworks in order to better understand its general structure. Our findings show that economic relations (cooperation, commercial exchanges) and social relations (trust, friendship, kinship, information interchanges) between the firms in the network are embedded within each other. The firms of the network exchange tacit information only with those firms with which they maintain stronger social and business links. Information and knowledge are treated as a strategic resource that is only shared with those companies that are not direct competitors.

Data from a cross-industry sample confirm the effects of different organizational structures on dynamic capabilities in alliance settings. Our work integrates the literatures pertinent to organizational structure and the learning and creativity processes that characterize dynamic capabilities in alliances. Our results suggest that centralized structures in alliances hinder creativity and learning, and that formalization impedes learning in alliances. Supporting the arguments put forward by authors such as Burns and Stalker (1961), our results suggest that mechanistic structures in alliance teams hinder the development of dynamic capabilities, whereas organic structures are more conducive in these interorganizational settings.

Although trust has been given much attention in the management literature as an explanatory factor, less research has been devoted to defining and operationalizing the role of trust, particularly in relation to interorganizational collaboration. The role of trust in collaboration is usually attributed ex post; successful alliances seem to involve trust; unsuccessful alliances do not. As such, much of the extant literature has treated trust as a residual term for the complex social-psychological processes necessary for social action to occur. Yet the relationship between trust and performance remains somewhat elusive in collaborative relationships, perhaps due to the frequent application of interpersonal types of trust to interorganizational types of collaborations. Based on a synthesis of research on trust with research on other aspects of collaboration, this paper identifies the multi-dimensional role played by trust in collaborative relationships. By distinguishing between different roles of trust pertaining to different phases of alliance evolution, and recognizing the recursive nature of collaborative trust, this paper attempts to respond to calls for research examining the evolution of trust and its impact on interorganizational collaborative relationships. The simultaneous focus on trust as an antecedent of relationship development, a moderator of these on outcome, and direct effects on relationship outcome has important implications for both research and practice alike.

Cette recherche porte sur la collaboration au sein des réseaux d'innovation distants. Ces équipes-projets sont constituées d'individus dispersés géographiquement, réunis temporairement, et utilisant les technologies de l'information et de la communication comme support de communication et de mise en place du projet. La littérature consacrée aux relations entre les acteurs d'un réseau fait de la confiance le principal mode de coordination. Or, il semble admis que cette confiance s'appuie essentiellement sur la connaissance de l'autre et le face-à-face. Notre objectif est d'étudier les conditions dans lesquelles la confiance peut être un mode de coordination quand il n'y a pas d'interaction directe sur le même lieu entre les acteurs du projet d'innovation. Pour répondre à cette question, nous analysons le fonctionnement d'équipes de développement de logiciels libres associées au projet Linux. Il apparaît que l'absence d'interactions directes et simultanées limite considérablement la confiance interpersonnelle. Cette absence est compensée par une confiance institutionnelle élevée mais aussi par un dispositif formalisé de contrôle, dont la combinaison permet d'assurer un niveau de performance élevé. Aussi, nous nous éloignons des approches privilégiant la confiance comme une alternative au contrôle pour préférer un point de vue intégrateur. En particulier, le contrôle sanction peut être utilisé sans démotiver les membres de la communauté Linux parce qu'il vient compléter un système global de contrôle qui s'apparente à un contrôle social.

Communities of practice have been presented as the panacea of organizational learning. Building up on three case studies in different organizations characterized by different internal contexts, this article pushes the logic one step further by arguing that communities of practice can also be unique collaboration spaces within bureaucracies. Their main property is the ambiguity of their relationship with organizational control mechanisms and structures. Communities play with the rules, they can be adaptable and resilient and as such can build resilience within the organization. But this ambiguity, being the foundation of their capacity to introduce cooperation within organizations, is also difficult to maintain. Cultivating communities of practice thus becomes a delicate task for managers who must be able to adopt complex and contradictory behaviours. Five roles that can be fulfilled by management are analysed: stimulation, facilitation, support, control and recognition. Far from the generic recommendations that can be found in the literature to date, the findings indicate that the degree of intervention from management is highly dependent on the internal organizational context. This article thus provides a contingent framework to the cultivation of communities of practice.

We present research examining the role of organizational justice in the perceptions of patients visiting the urgent care department of a hospital. Patients' perceptions of uncertainty were found to mediate the relationship between waiting time and satisfaction and between waiting time and anger. Further, waiting time was significantly negatively related to procedural justice perceptions. Procedural justice perceptions were significantly positively related to distributive justice perceptions, which in turn, were significantly positively associated with satisfaction. We discuss the implications concerning managing the attitudes of waiting customers.