Collaboration: leveraging resources and expertise

Successful collaboration is an art form but can be developed through several smart practices. The authors discuss the meaning of collaboration, stakeholder perceptions of collaborative partnerships, and the experience of Summer Scholars, a nonprofit community organization that successfully uses collaboration to accomplish its mission. Further, they offer strategies for successful collaborative efforts.     

Collaboration for the Provision of Services

Abstract

This paper conducts a review of the extant literature to examine community collaboration in the provision of human services. The authors conducted a systematic research synthesis to organize literature around how community organizations should position themselves in order to maximize the benefits of collaborative relationships while enhancing service provision. Evaluation of the literature reveals 30% of the articles could be classified as empirical. Due to limitations of the studies no definitive statements could be made regarding the nature of collaboration and what works in the collaborative process; however, some generalizations are suggested. Gaps in the literature include lack of rigorous empirical studies that identify best practices, the type of training needed to prepare staff and members of organizations for participation in the collaborative process, and differing management models and practices to determine which forms of governance system achieve the best results.     

Constructing collaborative processes through experiential learning: Participatory planning in Kaymaklı, Turkey

Prevalent discussions in urban planning focus on collaboration. However, they do not explain the underlying processes that allow collaborative work. This paper argues that experiential learning processes can help construct and maintain collaborative platforms in urban planning. To show this, the paper uses the participatory planning of Kaymaklı, a small agricultural and touristic town in the internationally well-known cultural landscape, the Cappadoccia region. This entails the second stage of a two-year long Participatory Action Research project initiated by a local civil association in collaboration with the Municipality of Kaymaklı. The paper presents how the local capacity for collaboration is built through the development of local knowledge in a practice-based training programme. The attention is particularly directed to the pedagogic design of the training programme, the shared knowledge that came out of it, the affects of the programme on the collaborative capacity of participants, and their future collaborative action.     

Facilitating commitment, consensus, credibility, and visibility through collaborative foreign assistance project evaluations

The four key organizations involved in foreign assistance projects—those of the donor, technical advisors, host country counterparts, and beneficiaries—hold systematically different stakes in the project implementation process. As a result, each tends to reject or mistrust the goals of the other participants and resists collaborating with them during the project evaluation process. Yet, several potentially beneficial outcomes of collaboration for each of these organizations can be demonstrated, including enhanced commitment, consensus, credibility, and visibility. The evaluator plays a key role as facilitator of such a mutually beneficial process of collaboration by convincing each stakeholder that collaboration will provide the forum to promote rather than to sabotage individual stakes. In some cases, however, modified collaborative approaches may be necessary in order to bring to bear the issues and concerns of all stakeholders.     

The development of stratification and segregation in a new scientific field: A study of collaboration among scientists in neuroblastoma research between 1975 and 2016

Using a new data set on scientific collaboration in neuroblastoma research over a period of 41 years, we study how the structure of collaboration ties in an evolving scientific field changes over time. Guided by concepts from the sociology of knowledge and status theories, we highlight the importance of a field’s size and age for processes of stratification and segregation within it. Our findings suggest that stratification becomes stronger and diversifies as the field of neuroblastoma research expands. Moreover, we find that the occurrence of collaboration between researchers with a similar status becomes more likely as the field matures. While previous work has primarily examined established fields, our study focuses on how scientific fields change their structure over time. More broadly, our article demonstrates the potential analytical merits of adopting a dynamic and relational perspective on the developmental trajectories of organizational and cultural fields.     

Collaboration,Partnership, Policy,and Practice in Career Development

This article discusses the importance of collaboration among professional organizations, governmental entities, and counselors in behalf of career development. Examples of possible international and national collaborative initiatives and policy emphases are described.     

FOR MONEY OR GLORY? COMMERCIALIZATION,COMPETITION, AND SECRECY IN THE ENTREPRENEURIAL UNIVERSITY

Scholars have grown concerned that the commercialization of academic science is increasing secrecy at the expense of cooperation and information sharing. Using data from comparable surveys of academic scientists in three fields (experimental biology, mathematics, and physics), we test whether scientists have become more competitive and more secretive over the last 30 years. We also use the recent survey to test a multivariate model of the effects of scientific competition and commercialization (patenting, industry funding, and industry collaboration) on scientific secrecy. We find that secrecy has increased, and has increased particularly for experimental biologists. Only 13 percent of experimental biologists in 1998 felt safe discussing their ongoing research with all others doing similar work. Our multivariate analysis shows that this secrecy is most related to concerns about being anticipated (scientific competition). We find that patenting is associated with increased secrecy among mathematicians and physicists, but not for experimental biologists. We find that industry funding is associated with more secrecy, while industry collaboration is associated with less secrecy, across fields. Our results suggest that the recent concern over increasing scientific secrecy has merit. However, this increased secrecy seems to result from a combination of increasing commercial linkages and increased pressures from scientific competition. Our research highlights the central role that scientists' competition for priority plays in the system of science and that, while such competition spurs effort, it also produces negative effects that recent trends toward commercialization of academic science seem to be exacerbating.     

Environment,Development, and Water in Academia: A Critical Network Perspective

The world is currently confronting two water crises, a developmental crisis concerning populations who lack access to water and an environmental crisis regarding water scarcity and freshwater resource depletion. Are we as academics addressing the complexity of these issues? Using network analysis of over 5,000 articles that address water development and water scarcity, I generate a co-citation network to identify the overlap between development and environmental water literatures in academic journals. The results suggest that the development literature only has a 6.28 percent overlap with the environmental literature and the environmental literature has a mere 1.92 percent overlap. Overall, this research suggests that there is an extreme lack of academic articles that address water scarcity and water development concurrently. Until we as an academic community become more nuanced in our studies of water, we will lack a full understanding of how to solve these seemingly contradictory problems. I conclude by drawing on critical Marxist and “Frankfurt School” perspectives to explain this apparent disconnect.     

Connecting the dots: implementing and evaluating a network intervention to foster scientific collaboration and productivity

This article presents the design and implementation of a network intervention to foster scientific collaboration at a research university, and describes an experimental framework for rigorous evaluation of the intervention’s impact. Based on social network analysis of publication and grant data, an innovative type of research funding program was developed as a form of alteration of the university’s collaboration network. The intervention consisted in identifying research communities in the network and creating a new collaborative relation between pairs of unconnected researchers in selected communities. The new collaboration was created to maximally increase the overall cohesion of the target research community. In order to evaluate the impact of the program, we designed a randomized experiment with treatment and control communities based on the Rubin Causal Model approach. The paper describes the intervention design, reports findings from the program implementation, and discusses the statistical framework for future evaluation of the intervention.     

Publication patterns of faculty in commision on accreditation for marriage and family therapy education programs

Journal articles published by faculty in Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE) programs from 1998 to 2002 were analyzed to determine patterns regarding the amount and type of research conducted by this group. Fifty-eight percent of the articles were identified as research. Slightly more than 10% of these dealt with clinical processes and outcomes. Forty percent of studies reported a specific source of funding. Twenty-nine percent of research articles used qualitative methods, with percentages rising over the course of time. Results suggest the average number of publications per faculty member was relatively low, particularly for senior faculty. Implications for these findings are discussed.     

Tools for Collaboration: Using and Designing Tools in Interorganizational Economic-Crime Investigation

Economic-crime investigation in Finland is in transition from hierarchically organized, sequential collaboration between authorities toward parallel, interorganizational collaboration. This article describes the tools used and developed for managing the new collaborative economic-crime-investigation process. The challenge is to find interoganizational investigative tools that are flexible enough to shift between vertical use within and horizontal use across organizations. Local construction is often needed in collaborative networks, otherwise the tool never meets the needs of the divergent users. A good tool is sensitive enough to adapt to local settings, and robust enough to be transferable to other contexts. In this article, I give empirical examples of how the challenge is met in the economic-crime investigation cases followed from 1999 to 2002. The findings suggest that the standardization of tools does not take place merely from the top-down, and that something new is emerging: collaborative standardization of local innovations.     

Measuring changes in interagency collaboration: an examination of the Bridgeport Safe Start Initiative

This paper describes the evaluation of interagency collaboration in a network of child-serving providers as part of the evaluation of the Bridgeport Safe Start Initiative (BSSI). In line with the system of care approach, the objectives of BSSI included reducing fragmentation of efforts and delivering integrated services to families of young children exposed to or at risk of exposure to family violence. Interagency collaboration was examined via social network and focus group data collected at three time points starting at baseline. Network analysis findings suggest that over time the network structure became consistent with BSSI's vision of an ideal collaborative network structure. Focus group findings, however, present a more complex picture of the status of collaboration. This paper sheds light on approaches and challenges to measuring interagency collaboration in a service delivery system and communicating social network analysis findings to stakeholders in a way that is accessible and useful.     

Partnerships in Transition: Managing Organizational and Collaborative Change

Despite the abundance of literature on collaboration, very little attention is devoted to exploring the how partnerships transition over time. This article reports the findings of a study that examined how a mature partnership adjusted to a new administrative team while moving forward with a strategic plan to advance the partnership's mission. Key informant interviews revealed that when stable leadership is not present during transitional phases, the broker organization's capacity to facilitate the collaborative effort will be limited when priorities shift toward maintaining its organizational capacity for survival instead of the collective goals of the partnership.     

A Process Perspective of International Research Collaboration

International collaboration on research projects is becoming important as countries experience similar problems that need attention. The process of such research collaboration is discussed with specific reference to initiating collaborative research, evaluating the potential of entering into a research partnership, preparing for travel, developing and completing a project, and maintaining international collaborative research relationships. Factors that enhance and diminish such relationships are also discussed.     

Interorganizational collaboration in social service organizations: A study of the prerequisites to success

Organizational scholars have identified four prerequisites to effective interorganizational collaboration: incentive, willingness, ability, and capacity. This study analyzes data drawn from participants in eight family services collaboratives in order to assess the relationships identified in the literature. Our findings support the premise that each of these prerequisites is positively related to collaborative effectiveness. Implications for collaboration leaders are suggested.     

Cognitive-behavioral treatment for adolescents who sexually offend and their families: individual and family applications in a collaborative outpatient program

This article describes an outpatient treatment program for adolescent sexual abusers that was established by a mental health agency in collaboration with a specialized probation program in the juvenile court. Individualized treatment is based on a comprehensive clinical assessment with the youth and guardian, for which examples are provided. Given the heterogeneity of this population, we describe several treatment strategies directed to various individual or family clinical targets, including psychiatric disorders, sexual deviance and sexuality, normal adolescent development and adaptive skills, and parent and family relationships. Ongoing collaborative and coordination issues are also reviewed. The integration of mental health and probationary services provides a balanced approach to the community management and treatment of the low-risk, primarily first-time, adolescent sexual offender.     

Children with disabilities in out-of-home care: Perspectives on organisational collaborations

Many contemporary support services for children and young people (CYP) in out-of-home-care have adopted a collaborative approach to service provision in order to best meet the complex needs of clients. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the perceptions of Evolve Behaviour Support Services (EBSS) frontline and managerial staff delivering services to CYP in out-of-home-care with disability and complex behaviours regarding interagency/stakeholder collaboration. Views about the number and nature of collaborative partnerships, factors which facilitate or hinder effective relationships and advantages (including unintended benefits) of collaboration were sought. Qualitative interviews with 21 participants highlighted issues around: (1) general and agency/stakeholder specific issues and barriers, and (2) benefits of collaboration. The collaborative approach to service provision was seen as greatly enhancing the effectiveness of EBSS' response and ability to meet the range of CYP's complex needs, as well as having benefits for carers and service providers. Nevertheless, difficulties with collaboration were also encountered. Frequently identified challenges included reduced stakeholder engagement, differences in professional backgrounds and practice frameworks, unequal initiation of contact and follow-up, organisational disparities, communication and information sharing problems, frequent stakeholder turnover and geographical barriers in rural/remote areas.     

Understanding the collaborative-participatory design

In this study, the role of collaboration in design is discussed, placing emphasis on how to include end-users in the development process. The study is based on a literature review focusing on aspects of collaboration in design, usability and human factors. Thereby, it introduces, compares and contrasts the characteristics of both collaborative and user-centered design perspectives, leading to the collaborative-participatory design approach. Finally, the advantages, disadvantages and precautions of implementing collaborative and participatory models are pointed out.