Building A Collaborative Advantage

Inter-organizational collaboration is becoming increasingly significant as a means of achieving organizational objectives in turbulent environments. Yet it is not an easy process to implement successfully. Drawing on the work of authors with a high level of relevant experience, this volume provides a thought-provoking and accessible introduction to the theory and practice of `creating collaborative advantage′. The first part of the book develops a framework of key dimensions for understanding collaboration. Different perspectives highlight the diversity of rationales and contexts involved, and the range of elements which need to be considered and addressed when embarking on collaborative endeavours. The second section focuses in more detail on collaboration in practice. It examines the problems that can occur when different `stakeholders′, who frequently hold different aims, cultures, procedures, professional languages and power resources, work across organizational boundaries. The last section addresses specifically the processes of acting as a facilitator to collaborative groups. It discusses how and why a third party facilitator role can be helpful, and explores the various processes and techniques that can be used.

Collaboration across organizational boundaries is often critical to achieve an objective, but difficult to achieve in practice. This book explores the structures, processes, roles, skills, tools and techniques that enable people in different places to achieve a successful joint outcome and build advantage through collaboration. Written by an experienced practitioner who has facilitated many collaborative efforts, it includes practical case studies to illustrate key points.

'Collaborative Advantage offers the perfect recipe for successful businesses that improve lives' -- Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, co-founders of Ben and Jerry's 'A valuable contribution to the vital task of getting people to see the business world as a complex, interconnected ecosystem, rather than as a sharp-elbowed race to the bottom' -- Rory Sutherland, Vice-chairman of Ogilvy Group UK, and the Spectator's 'Wiki Man'. Strategic consultant and social entrepreneur Paul Skinner argues that we have now reached a turning point in history from which creating Competitive Advantage may no longer be in the best interests of an organization. He presents today's business and social challenges through a new strategic lens and offers this book as a practical guide to help you create Collaborative Advantage, transform your business and change the world. You will gain access to world-leading techniques to enable you to: · Mobilize staff, partners, collaborators and customers around a common purpose that gets everyone you need firmly on your side. · Foster improved innovation, reach more customers or beneficiaries, build greater loyalty, generate greater income and forge more ambitious partnerships. · De-couple your potential for growth from the level of resource your organization controls. This is an indispensable guide that will help you transform the growth of your business or the impact of your non-profit by bringing the fuller value-creating potential of the outside world inside your organization.

Collaboration between organizations on different continents can raise issues of economic development, health, the environment, risk sharing, supply chain efficiency and human resource management. It is an activity that can touch upon almost every aspect of business and social life. In this notable text, the authors combine rigorous theory with practical examples to create a useful, practical, one-stop resource covering topics such as: the principles of the theory of collaborative advantage managing aims membership structures and dynamics issues of identity using the theory. The key features of the book include rich theory, drawn directly from practice, explained in simple language, and a coherently developed understanding of the challenges of collaboration, based on careful research. This significant text will be an invaluable reference for all students, academics and managers studying or working in collaboration.

In the emerging new collaborative economic order, innovation is achieved by an integrated process of collaboration between policymakers, business and society. Often, the focus for this collaboration is at a regional level. Creating Collaborative Advantage examines the trends in innovation policy that reflect this new thinking and regional focus. This book develops the view that collaboration is one of many ways of organising a competitive economy. It asks how, when and where collaboration is a meaningful way of organisation. It explores collaboration at business level, business networks between companies, and a wider collaborative coalition between business and public authorities. It is not a manual, a 'how to do it', because there is no single straightforward universal model to replace current orthodoxy on economic development, but it will enable people to learn. The contributors to this unique book have been involved with the implementation of some of the most outstanding examples of collaborative approaches, it therefore gives an outstanding picture of diversity, inbuilt comparisons and contrast, and debate between the cases. The co-authors give their understanding of these issues, but the book tries to establish some common understandings and bring the concept of collaboration to a larger audience, and to increase interest in a field which requires further exploration. Policy makers, advisers and administrators at all levels of government, those involved in research and development, and business leaders and educators, will find this book invaluable, together with readers having an academic interest in the subject of innovation.

Homelessness is not a historical accident. It is the disastrous outcome of policy decisions made over time and at several levels of government. Drawing on network governance theory, extended participant observation, and more than sixty interviews with key policy figures, Carey Doberstein investigates how government and civil-society actors in Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto have organized themselves to solve public problems. He concludes that having a progressive city council is not enough to combat homelessness - civil-society organizations and actors must have genuine access to the channels of government power in order to work with policy makers and implement effective solutions.

"In 1982, Canada formally recognized Aboriginal rights within its Constitution. The move reflected a consensus that states should and could use group rights to protect and accommodate subnational groups within their borders. Decades later, however, no one is happy. This state of affairs, Panagos argues, is rooted in a failure to define what aboriginality means, which has led to the promotion and protection of a single vision of aboriginality--that of the justices of the Supreme Court. He concludes that there can be no justice so long as the state continues to safeguard a set of values and interests defined by non-Aboriginal people."--

Why has Chrysler been twice as profitable as GM and Ford during the 1990s even though it is a much smaller company with plants that are less efficient than Ford's? Why does Toyota continue to have substantial productivity and quality advantages long after knowledge of the Toyota Production System has diffused to competitors? The answer, according to Jeff Dyer, is that Toyota and Chrysler have been the first in their industry to recognize that the fundamental unit of competition has changed--from the individual firm to the extended enterprise. In this book Dyer demonstrates the power of collaborative advantage, arguing that, in the future, competitive advantage will increasingly be created by teams of companies, rather than by the single firm. Managers who do not recognize this development--regardless of their industry--are in danger of adopting the wrong strategies for their firms. Dyer draws on eight years of study of the automotive industry, including a wealth of data from interviews with over 200 executives and surveys of over 500 suppliers, as he offers detailed case studies of Toyota and Chrysler to show managers how to create collaborative advantage with their supplier networks. Dyer demonstrates how to build trust in the extended enterprise, how to exploit and manage knowledge (describing how Toyota manages knowledge across organizational boundaries), and how to create advantages through dedicated asset investments. In turn, these processes generate stunning performance advantages and an identity for the extended enterprise. To be successful in future years, executives will have to convert their corporations into fully integrated, extended enterprises. In Collaborative Advantage, Jeff Dyer shows them how.