Collaborative advantagedvantage

What? Why? How? And Why Not?

 II- WHAT IS COLLABORATIVE ADVANTAGE?

1. Collaborative Advantage is when collaboration between several bodies

(industries, agencies, governmental bodies, etc.) allow to achieve efficiency,
growth, progress, etc. reference their alliance.
2. In the global economy a well-developed ability to create and sustain fruitful
collaboration gives companies a significant competitive leg-up
3. Increasing number of organizations seeking collaborative advantgae as the most
effective way of realizing their vision
4. For example, uber and spotify- complementary services that value add to each
other, personalizing customer experience.
this collaboration introduced tons of uber users to spotify while proving uber users
with an even more personalized and unique experience.

• For example, partnership between public organizations, and those with and
between non-profit organizations, do tackle social issues that would otherwise fall
between the gaps.

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III- WHAT IS COLLABORATIVE INERTIA?
1. Collaborative Inertia is a phenomenon that describes collaborative efforts
that make slow progress or do not succeed in achieving any tangible
outcome.
2.

• But why Collaborative Inertia is often found in practice rather than

Collaborative Advantage?
• What is the nature of Collaborative situations that makes them so prone to
frustration?

Managing Collaboration

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 FOCUS
• Before explaining the bases of collaborative advantage as to explain at a
second stage how to manage to collaborate, we need to emphasize the
fact that the interest is that of collaboration (collaborative relationships)
between organizations and not between individuals

Two types of Collaboration :

Collaborative relationships such

Promoted by the government as partnerships, alliances, joint
(collaboration between ventures, networks of various
public agencies, non-profit sorts, collaborative forms of
organizations) contracting and outsourcing,
joint working, etc.

• Examples:
1- Strategic Alliance between airlines and car manufacturing industry
2- Public – private partnerships especially at the level of social services
3- Industry networks between regional and national governments to promote wealth
creation and mutual support

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 IV- WHAT ARE THE BASES FOR
COLLABORATIVE ADVANTAGE?
1- Access to Resources
2- Shared Risk
3- Efficiency
4- Coordination and Seamlessness
5- Learning
6- The Moral Imperative
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 IV- WHAT ARE THE BASES FOR COLLABORATIVE
ADVANTAGE? (CTND.)
Access to Resources:
1. Organizations often collaborate if they are unable to achieve their objectives with
their own resources.
2. Collaboration with other organizations allows to bring together different resources
including technology or expertise. This simply means drawing on a wider pool of
technical expertise ,expertise, skills, labour and networks.
3. One common example is Inter-Company collaboration over taking a product to the
market. In simple terms, one company provides the product and the other provides the
access to the market .
Such marketing alliances may involve very small entrepreneurial businesses that have
developed an unique product or those seeking new markets in geographical areas that
they have not previously tapped.

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 IV- WHAT ARE THE BASES FOR
COLLABORATIVE ADVANTAGE? (CTND.)
4. Collaborations involving organizations in the non-profit and public sectors are also
often predicated on the need to share resource, expertise, knowledge and
connections. For example, the police, schools and neighbourhood typically
collaborate over youth criminal justice issues.
5. similarly, economic development agencies typically collaborate over locality
development issues.

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 IV- WHAT ARE THE BASES FOR
COLLABORATIVE ADVANTAGE? (CTND.)
Shared Risk:
1. In this case , the organizations collaborate because the consequences of failure on a
project are too high for them to risk taking it on alone.
2. Here the purpose of the collaboration primarily is to share risk, rather than those in
which partners have agreed to share the risk associated with a collaboration formed
for other purposes.
3. cost-intensive research and development collaborations between organizations with
similar resources are typically of this sort.

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 IV- WHAT ARE THE BASES FOR COLLABORATIVE ADVANTAGE? (CTND.)

Efficiency:
1. A different perspective on efficiency stems from the notion of economies of scale.
For example, adjacently located public authorities may collaborate over the provision
of a service, even though they each have the expertise to deliver it.

2. similarly, companies may outsource support activities such as cleaning and catering
to other companies who gain economies of scale , (for example in bulk purchase of
supplies) by contracting to provide these services to many organizations.
3. A third perspective is concerned with operational efficiency. For example, many
purchasing and supply chain alliances are of this sort,
With the purchasing organization gaining efficiencies through arrangements for
example, ensure delivery of components at the time of need and at an agreed price.
4. The fourth perspective relates to the concerns with co-ordination of public services
delivery to avoid duplication in service provision that cannot be justified against
public expenditure
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 IV- WHAT ARE THE BASES FOR COLLABORATIVE ADVANTAGE? (CTND.)
Coordination and Seamlessness:
1. The provision of public services which appear seamless to the citizen user has
been a concern of many governments in recent years.
2. For example, services for families with needs related to special education
might be serviced through provision of health, social services and education
services ‘co-located’ together in a special school building.
3. This ‘one-stop shop’ philosophy has also often been used as the basis for
collaborations between service providing small to medium sized enterprises
Or larger locality based commercial organizations.
4. Examples range from complete wedding services in which small companies
collaborate to provide invitations , reception ,cars,flowers and so on.

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 Coordination and seamlessness
5. Yet, coordination is not only or always concerned with seamlessness :
• Repetition (duplication of an activity)
• Omission (leaving gaps in activity)
• Divergence (diluting activity across a range of activities)
• Counter production (pursuing conflicting activities)
are pitfalls associated with organization acting without reference to each other

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 IV- WHAT ARE THE BASES FOR COLLABORATIVE
ADVANTAGE? (CTND.)
Learning:
1. While collaborations are commonly set up to pursue some joint activity, some are
created with the aim of mutual learning.
2. Networks of organizations in the same industrial or service sector often are created
with this .
3. In some industries in some industries learning partnerships have been deliberately
created.
For example, in the automobile industry staff from vehicle manufacturers have acted as
trainers to the staff in the vehicle component manufacturing companies that supply them
4. In other cases, learning from a partner organization may be an undeclared strategic
reason for a company to form an alliance or joint venture.
5. Other manifestations of learning include multi agency group visits to foreign location
and so on.
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 IV- WHAT ARE THE BASES FOR COLLABORATIVE ADVANTAGE? (CTND.)
Moral Imperative:
1. Sometimes the most important reason for being concerned with collaboration is
a moral one.
2. This stems from the belief that the really important issues facing society
Such as poverty, crime, drug abuse, which cannot be tackled by any organization
acting alone.
3. Collaboration is thus essential if there is to be any hope of alleviating them

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 WHY?

WHY COLLABARTION IS ESSENTIAL?

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 WHY?
Two reasons:
• To protect territory against violation by others
(for instance, large public agencies employ senior
managers to:
– take responsibility of their collaborative activity, and
– manage a particular collaboration on behalf of the
member organizations

• To improve physical facilities or support

infrastructure to address needs of the community
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 HOW?

HOW TO COLLABORATE?

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 HOW?
Three Approaches:
1- First Approach (can be associated to the rational step by step
model):

o Collaboration process is conceptualized in phases/stages in a life

cycle

o There is a need to identify what should be done in each phase

o Criticism: Implementation of such approach is not encouraged

because:
o it is hard to identify clear beginnings and endings within the process
o the collaboration process changes and develops throughout the life cycle of
the organization

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 HOW?
Three Approaches:
1- Second Approach:

o Identification of attributes, that if available, will determine the

chances that the collaboration will perform well or badly.

o Two types of attributes/factors:

o Factors contributing to good performance, such as: inclusion of stakeholders,
partner selection, mutual trust, honesty and reliability, shared vision, mutual
interdependence, open communication, appropriate distribution of power,
political influence, appropriate governance structure, support of skills and
expertise, etc.

o Factors leading to bad performance, such as: personal agendas and

individual egos, poor managerial relationships, geographical distances, and
cultural differences

o Trust (part of the socially complex resources) is seen as the most

important contributor to a successful collaboration process

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 HOW?
Three Approaches:
1- Third Approach:

o Development of tools to support collaborative workshops

o Such tools are based on strategic management and

strategy implemented

o They are concerned with the development and use of

modeling methods to support the exploration of issues
(for instance, find an alternative problems definitions that
are relevant to collaborative situation).

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 HOW?
How To Collaborate Successfully?

1. Focus on success factors

2. Set clear and achievable goals

3. Build trust

4. Communicate effectively

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WHY NOT?

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 WHY NOT?

• Seeking collaborative advantage is very

important, yet, we should keep in mind that it
is a resource consuming activity.

• Thus, unless benefits exceeds costs, we should

not consider such activity.

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 EXTRA READING MATERIAL
From the following book:
Huxham, C. and Vangen, S. (2010), Managing to
Collaborate, The Theory and Practice of
Collaborative Advantage, Routledge

Read chapter 2: Cases of Collaboration (pp. 14 –

pp. 29), case studies about collaboration that can
be used as examples in your exam as concerns
“Collaborative Advantage” and “Collaborative
Inertia”.
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