What are the connections between collaboration values and communication practices? An investigation exploring collaborators’ perceptions of supports and constraints in collaboration practice
Published Online: Mar 05, 2024
Page range: 56 - 80
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2024-0004
Keywords
© 2024 Otto Hedenmo, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Interorganisational collaboration has gained increasing importance for addressing complex societal problems due to its potential to facilitate fair and efficient transitions toward more sustainable societies (Gray & Purdy, 2018; Jagers et al., 2020). Interorganisational collaborations, also referred to as community-based collaborations (Cox, 2010), meta-organisations (Ahrne & Brunsson, 2008), and cross-sector partnerships (Koschmann et al., 2012), are formalised but voluntary constellations in which organisations unite with the aim of equal influence to collectively address larger societal challenges. Moreover, interorganisational collaborations are often loosely structured, relying on members’ interactions, and thus, success hinges on members’ abilities to adopt communication practices to generate collaborative advantages (Keyton et al., 2008). Despite this critical reliance on communication in interorganisational collaborations, there remains much to uncover about how their communication allows members to take meaningful action.
Due to their difficulties in achieving collaborative goals, the societal impact of interorganisational collaborations has been increasingly questioned (e.g., Hall, 2020). However, much of this critique argues for an increased focus on goal completion and rational means of reaching them, such as providing members with correct information and dedicated responsibilities (e.g., Statskontoret, 2022; see also Chen, 2008; Sandler, 1998; Stibbe et al., 2018). Critics tend to neglect the fact that the societal impact of interorganisational collaborations is not solely determined by their ability to complete goals but is also achieved through the ways in which their communication practices make a valuable difference to members. This carries the risk of undermining their societal impact and of uninformed altering of collaborative practice in ways that might weaken the values they possess. Furthermore, despite interorganisational collaborations’ dependence on communication, suggestions for improvement often overlook the ways in which communication directly influences their impact. In this article, I argue that adopting a communication-centric perspective (Koschmann, 2022) to examine factors that support and constrain these less apparent values can enhance the understanding of the societal impact of interorganisational collaborations beyond their goal achievement.
To increase this knowledge, I investigate how members perceive collaboration values as supported or constrained by interorganisational collaborations’ communication practices. Specifically, collaboration values here refer to the means through which such a collaboration possesses the ability to “act and make a difference” (Koschmann, 2020: 85). Considering that the actions taken by interorganisational collaborations are carried out by their members, collaboration values denote the ways in which these collaborations enable their members to act in certain ways. Communication plays a pivotal role in these processes, enabling members to acquire knowledge, establish relationships, and gain arguments to advocate for the issues at hand. Although having members with different ideas, interests, and abilities to contribute to the collaboration is imperative for interorganisational collaborations, this diversity also introduces varied needs and perceptions regarding the creation of collaboration values. By building upon a communication-centred understanding of interorganisational collaboration (Koschmann, 2020; Koschmann et al., 2012), members’ ability to generate collaboration value is here seen as constituted by the communication practices within the collaboration. This perspective emphasises communication as a meaning-making practice in which members’ co-orientation of ideas and interests shapes collaborative practices in ways that either support or constrain their ability to act.
Although previous communication-centred investigations have provided insights into the interactional practices that support or constrain collaboration value (Heath & Isbell, 2017; Koschmann, 2016; Kramer et al., 2017), there is a limited body of research exploring how members
The empirical material for this study stem from interviews conducted with eleven members of a Swedish regional interorganisational collaboration focused on climate change mitigation. To encourage respondents to articulate their understanding of how collaboration values are communicationally influenced, these interviews focused on members’ perceptions of collaboration value in relation to the sudden switch to digital collaboration brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. By focusing on this interruption (Weick et al., 2005), the aim was to reveal (Heidegger, 1977) communicational understandings that might otherwise remain unknown or be taken for granted. In light of this, I seek to address the following research questions:
RQ1. What perceptions of collaboration values were present among members of the Swedish interorganisational collaboration? RQ2. In what ways were these collaboration values perceived as supported or constrained by the Interorganisational collaboration’s communicational characteristics?
The article is structured into five sections. The first section presents an overview of previous research on how interorganisational collaborations, with an emphasis on collaborations similar to the case chosen for my investigation, create value for their members. I also explain how this study contributes to the existing body of research on the subject. Next, the theoretical framework that forms the basis of this investigation is presented and linked to the objectives of my research. In the subsequent section, I outline the research methodology and how the theoretical framework was applied to the analysis. Then, I present the identified collaboration values and exemplify them with excerpts from the empirical material. Finally, in the concluding discussion, I explain how this newfound understanding enhances the knowledge of interorganisational collaborations and the communicational perspective on collaboration values.
The question of how interorganisational collaborations acquire value for their members has been explored in various scientific disciplines, such as social geography, business studies, and planning studies (e.g., Clarke & Peterson, 2016; Mert, 2009; Walker & Daniels, 2019). While relatively few studies have specifically focused on interorganisational collaborations as communication practices (see Cox, 2010; Koschmann, 2022; Senge, 2008), the wealth of research in diverse fields has provided insights into the contextual factors that interrelate with collaboration values gained from the communication practices in such collaborations. Such insights have supported the investigation and assisted in the communication analysis.
A considerable amount of previous research has examined the connection between collaboration value and organisational preconditions. Two organisational factors have been frequently identified as specifically influential for the generation of collaboration value: organisational size and sectoral affiliation.
Previous studies have highlighted that the generation of collaboration values is influenced by the size of member organisations (e.g., Fenton et al., 2016; Gustavsson et al., 2009; Kasa et al., 2012). For example, studies have shown that larger organisations with greater financial resources and an organisational portfolio that aligns with the problem domain of the interorganisational collaboration have a positive influence on their collaboration value (Pinske & Kolk, 2012), since they are less dependent on the suitability and content of the collaboration (Fenton et al., 2016). These members can approach the problem domain from multiple angles, while smaller organisations with fewer resources are more dependent on the suitability of such collaboration. Despite this, such organisations perceive interorganisational collaborations as valuable for securing project funding and accessing opportunities to expand their workforce in the problem domain (Kasa et al., 2012). Membership in interorganisational collaborations can, in some cases, make the crucial difference between initiating any sustainability initiatives at all (Liljenfeldt & Keskitalo, 2011). In cases of resource scarcity, the choice of the collaboration being satisfactory becomes more critical (Gustavsson et al., 2009; see also Gustafsson & Mignon, 2019). Organisations with limited resources may therefore be more inclined to leave the collaboration if they are dissatisfied, while organisations with more extensive resources can take part in multiple collaborations and draw benefits from connecting networks and sources of information (e.g., Bodin, 2017; Palm & Åkerström, 2001; Wretling & Balfors, 2021).
In addition to organisational size, several studies have pointed to how collaboration values in interorganisational collaborations are influenced by members’ sectoral belonging (e.g., Brummans et al., 2008; Seitanidi et al., 2010). The balance between the logics and interests of the private and public sectors is considered necessary in interorganisational collaborations (e.g., Keyton et al., 2008), especially when addressing complex societal issues (Sami, 2018). It is common for public organisations to generate collaboration values connected to their societal responsibility to address various complex societal problems. In contrast, private actors find value in aspects such as improving their corporate social responsibility reputation, finding new markets, and gaining competence (e.g., Gray & Purdy, 2018).
However, although private organisations are considered common members of interorganisational collaborations (e.g., Granberg & Elander, 2007; Pinske & Kolk, 2012), research on the collaboration values of the private sector is limited compared with the focus on the public sector. Existing research, however, has highlighted that private actors derive values from these collaborations by enhancing their knowledge about societal problems, gaining insights into subsidies and regulations (Poncelet, 2004), extending their network of public actors, and enabling cross-sectoral learning (Fenton et al., 2016). Essentially, the collaboration values for private organisations seem to be adaptable and dependent on the characteristics of each private actor involved in the interorganisational collaboration.
In contrast to studies examining values at the organisational level, several studies have shown that other values make a difference to individual participants. While values at the organisational level can be perceived as focused on preconditions, studies focusing on values at the professional level investigate the indirect influence of interorganisational collaborations by providing individuals with the ability to impact their home organisation.
Interorganisational collaborations that address complex societal issues can include both representatives
In addition to the importance of legitimacy, studies have shown that the extent to which representatives are integrated into specific communities plays a significant role in shaping their perceptions of collaboration values in interorganisational collaborations; by participating in such a collaboration, representatives can gain access to new communities and strengthen or maintain their existing ones (Seitanidi et al., 2010; Thoresson et al., 2010). Representatives from larger organisations are more inclined to have various intraorganisational communities and tend to seek collaboration values different from those seeking to expand their knowledge and ideas (Bodin, 2017; see also Andersson & James, 2018). Conversely, individuals from organisations with fewer financial resources value interorganisational collaborations as communities where they can connect with peers who share similar interests and missions in the problem domain. These communities are perceived to provide new ideas, opportunities to focus on questions relevant to representatives’ interests, and platforms for promoting their professional activities and their organisations. This fosters motivation, facilitates knowledge exchange, and contributes to the development of their professional roles (Gustavsson, 2008; Lundberg, 2005).
Previous investigations have shed light on how collaboration values are inherently social and influenced by organisational preconditions, such as differences in resources and organisational logics, as well as abstract professional qualities, such as perceptions of legitimacy and community involvement. While these factors undoubtedly contribute to shaping collaboration values, communication emerges as a critical social prerequisite for these elements to evolve into tangible collaboration values. Without meaningful interaction among members, values such as legitimacy, relationship building, and knowledge exchange would be impossible to reach. Thus, investigating how members perceive communication practices to be influential in generating collaboration value provides insights into the communicational support, constraints, and contested elements. These factors, in turn, shape members’ actions and contribute to the societal impact of interorganisational collaborations.
This study applies a communication-centred approach that acknowledges inter-organisational collaborations as communicational entities distinct from other forms of organising (Keyton et al., 2008; Koschmann et al., 2012; Lewis, 2006). This perspective stands in contrast to the conventional and functionalistic approach, which often disregards communication or considers it just one variable among many (e.g., Senge, 2008; Stibbe et al., 2018; Walker & Daniels, 2019). In a communication-centred framework (Cooren, 2015; Taylor & Van Every, 2000), communication is not viewed as a mere conduit for information (Axley, 1984) but as a fundamental process of meaning-making (Tsoukas & Chia, 2002) essential for the maintenance, development, and agency of interorganisational collaborations (e.g., Koschmann et al., 2012).
The communication-centred perspective revolves around the concept that organising is fundamentally about members’ abilities to co-orient their ideas, interests, and meanings into
While most communication-centred investigations examine authority within the processes of interaction (Schoeneborn & Vasquez, 2017), in this study I take a distinct approach by focusing on how members perceive the communicational practices of an interorganisational collaboration as granting them the authority to act (Koschmann et al., 2017; Lewis et al., 2010). This approach thereby understands collaboration value from the perspective of members, who act as mediators connecting these practices with their home organisations.
To analyse how members perceive collaboration values in relation to communication, this study builds upon ideas of communication characteristics described by Koschmann (2016, 2020, 2022). Communicational characteristics refer to an interorganisational collaboration’s broader patterns of interactional practice among members. Koschmann argued that the collaboration value can be understood as supported or constrained by the variations in these three communicational contrasts (see Figure 1). The idea behind the communicational contrasts is that elements of emergence, exploration, and engagement are more likely to create substantial collaboration value, while aggregation, representation, and expression are more likely to create organisational protectionism, collaborative inertia, and, in the end, inaction. Whereas these contrasts consider interorganisational collaboration communication from an overarching perspective, they are, in turn, constructed by processes of co-oriented communication practices and media use (e.g., Fu et al., 2019), which members perceive as shaping their collaboration values differently. Hence, this study regards the connection between communicational contrasts and collaboration values as subjective and constructed by the members. In turn, members’ perceptions of how communication practices support or constrain certain collaboration values inform members’ actions and thereby become constitutive of interorganisational collaboration practice (Koschmann et al., 2017).
Illustration of interorganisational collaborations’ communicational contrasts
Considering that members perceive support or constraint from certain communication practices, the collaboration values of an interorganisational collaboration become interconnected and contested. For example, some members may attribute perceived authority to insights into projects and policy directions communicated in an aggregational practice, where information about members is piled up one after another. Sharing of information thereby increases some members’ value but relies on other members to gain authority from more explorative, emergent, or other communicational characteristics. In this way, members’ perception of the communicational support of collaboration values becomes influential for the societal impact of interorganisational collaborations, since “those that do not see value in collaborating […] consequently do not participate in the collaborative process” (Lewis et al., 2010: 469). Departing from the overarching contrasts illustrated in Figure 1 enables us to investigate how members’ collaboration values are perceived as supported or hindered by certain communicational qualities and the communicational interconnections of these values. In other words, the contrasts enable to indicate and connect the ways in which collaboration values are perceived to gain communicational support or constraints in an interorganisational collaboration.
For this study, I understood collaboration value as a socially constructed concept shaped by members’ interpretations. To investigate how perceptions of communication and collaboration values were connected required a qualitative method of investigation (e.g., Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). To capture the variations and interrelations of collaboration values within a bounded system (i.e., an interorganisational collaboration), a case-based approach was applied (e.g., Yin, 2018; see also Czarniawska, 2014). However, since communication practices within interorganisational collaborations are commonly taken for granted, my investigation was designed to make use of an interruption to the “ordinary” collaboration practice, which allowed members to express their perception of collaboration values in relation to certain communication characteristics. In particular, I used the “switch” (Berglez & Hedenmo, 2023) from face-to-face collaboration to fully digital communication practices as a focal point for members to reflect on their current digital communication practices in relation to the practices from before (see Weick et al., 2005).
A regional Swedish interorganisational collaboration dedicated for a decade to addressing climate change mitigation was used as the case. This choice was regarded as appropriate and practically significant since scholars (e.g., Hall, 2020), institutions (e.g., Statskontoret, 2022), and public officials (e.g., Wikström, 2021) have recently raised concerns about the societal impact of similar constellations, despite the continued urgency of the climate change issue (United Nations, 2022).
The Swedish interorganisational collaboration was established and convened by a regional governmental organisation to answer a national governmental directive. Its long-term aim was to transform the region into generating a surplus of renewable energy by 2045 by developing and implementing intra- and interorganisational activities. At the time, the collaboration consisted of approximately 50 member organisations, which included about 100 representatives from these organisations, including both decision-makers and decision-influencers. The members represented a mix of public, private, and nongovernmental organisations, and the structure included six permanent groups whose functionality was to be responsible for collaborative decision-making, a group composed of politicians and company CEOs, or for developing collaborative initiatives. Each group met four times a year, with each meeting lasting around two to three hours.
At the time of the investigation, the Swedish interorganisational collaboration had adapted its collaborative practices by transitioning to digital meetings and other activities due to Covid-19 restrictions. Despite this fundamental change in communication methods, the members continued to participate to a similar extent as they had before. The most notable activity during this time was the extensive effort to develop and reach an agreement on a five-year action plan – the joint action programme – that would guide their collaborative activities. This involved the participation of all the groups within the collaboration.
The empirical material used in this study is part of a larger dataset, which also includes one year of observing and analysing collaborative practices during the Covid-19 pandemic. This observational material provided a rich contextual understanding of the case (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2008). However, the focus of this study is on the bridge between the selected interorganisational collaboration and its member organisations, and it is primarily based on interviews with the members conducted 18 months into the digital collaboration. The participants chosen for interviews were those who had attended meetings both before and after the digital switchover and thus had experienced both environments. Informed by the literature, the selection of respondents was motivated to ensure a diverse set of perspectives yet to be representative of the interorganisational collaboration in focus. This included achieving a mix of respondents from different sectors, groups, and roles within the collaboration to construct a set of material that enabled an investigation of the relationships of their collaboration values. The material is presented in Table 1.
Summary of interviewees from the interorganisational collaboration
| R1 | public | development | sustainability strategist | 55 |
| R2 | public | development | sustainability strategist | 47 |
| R3 | public | development | environmental manager | 50 |
| R4 | public | decision-making | CEO – municipal company | 49 |
| R5 | public | development | politician | 48 |
| R6 | private | development | head of sustainability | 53 |
| R7 | private | decision-making | company owner | 47 |
| R8 | private | decision-making | company owner | 42 |
| R9 | private | development | product developer | 50 |
| R10 | public | convener | public official on sustainable development | 50 |
| R11 | public | convener | public official on sustainable development | 71 |
The interviews were semi-structured and conducted as a social practice (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2014: 66–67), in which I and the respondent discussed collaboration values and their connections to the interorganisational collaboration’s communication practice. The interviews were regarded as moments of sense-making informed by previous practices that provided the opportunity to reflect with the members on their perceptions of being organisational representatives and experiences of situations that currently or previously generated collaboration value. Three thematic areas and a battery of potential follow-up questions were prepared to guide the interview (Ekström & Larsson, 2019). The themes were as follows:
Respondents’ perceptions of characteristics of interorganisational collaboration in terms of values and challenges. Respondents’ perceptions of values and communicative characteristics in the interorganisational collaboration in focus. Respondents’ perceptions of values and communicative characteristics when considering switching to digital interorganisational collaboration practices.
The first theme aimed to provide context and prepare the respondents for the subsequent themes by asking them to elaborate on their understanding of interorganisational collaboration as a method before getting into more detail on the other two themes. Each theme started with a discussion about collaboration value but developed toward asking the respondents to elaborate on what specific characteristics of the communication practices within the collaboration that they perceived to be valuable. The similar structure of themes two and three allowed the respondents to reflect on potential consequences that followed changes in communication practices, particularly during the digital transition. To textually analyse the interviews, all recorded material was transcribed verbatim.
The analysis was designed to go beyond merely listing values by identifying overarching themes of values present in interorganisational collaboration. To this end, a thematic network analysis was applied to the transcribed material (e.g., Attride-Stirling, 2001; Braun & Clarke, 2006), which is an interpretive approach to an investigation where the empirical material is analysed through multiple steps, such as identifying, refining, and connecting codes to establish overarching themes relevant to the purpose of the investigation.
The analysis was conducted in the same order as the research questions, that is, to first indicate members’ overarching collaboration values and, second, connect these to certain communication practices. After familiarisation with the material through transcription and re-readings, the material was coded based on how members attributed collaboration value to the selected interorganisational collaboration, that is, ways in which they gained authority to act. The codes were visualised and interconnected with similar or related codes in a mind-map structure (Braun & Clarke, 2006: 89–90). The coding process indicated a multitude of collaboration values, such as networking abilities, knowledge, and legitimacy. Finding similarities and differences between these collaboration values laid the foundation for developing a relational and thematic understanding of the values within the interorganisational collaboration. Going back and forth between transcription and codes enabled particular values to be connected to respondents’ understandings of how collaborative practices generated certain forms of authority. From this process, three overarching themes of collaboration values were identified: monitoring, networking, and empowering.
The final step was to examine how members connected the three overarching values to the communicational contrasts presented earlier: aggregation or emergence (the need for aggregated or “generative knowledge”), representation or exploration (the need for “openness toward discovery and new ideas”), and expression or engagement (the need for “encounters of back-and-forth interaction”) (quotations from Koschmann, 2022: 403). Here, the interview design that aimed to reveal perceptions of changes in communication due to the digital switch enabled the analytical exploration of the communicational interconnections among collaboration values. To ground the analysis in previous investigations, continuous parallel readings of literature on similar interorganisational collaborations and communication-centred investigations of such (e.g, Heath & Isbell, 2017; Koschmann, 2020; Lewis et al., 2010) were conducted to seek theoretical and empirical support for the analysis or any deviations from existing research.
Indeed, interpretive analysis is dependent upon the interpretations and constructions made by the researcher conducting the analysis (e.g., Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2008). In striving for research validity, I applied Kvale and Brinkmann’s (2014: 297–302) three factors: controlling, questioning, and theorising throughout the analysis. This approach involved continuously comparing statements, testing re-interpretations, and seeking theoretical support or deviation in the existing literature, among other things.
All participation in this study was voluntary, and the empirical material did not include sensitive personal information. Prior to accepting participation, the respondents were provided with information about the purpose of the study, data usage, and data management. This information, along with the voluntary nature of participation, was repeated before each interview. After the interviews, the respondents received continuous information about the study and its results. To ensure respondents’ anonymity, all names of organisations and individuals were redacted.
From the analysis, three distinguishable and overarching collaboration values were identified: monitoring, networking, and empowering. Figure 2 presents how the analysis indicated that these values were perceived as supported by specific communicational contrasts for the case investigated. The figure visualises the communicative interconnections between the collaboration values in their positioning along the different contrasts. In particular, the figure confirms high-value characteristics from previous research (e.g., emergence) but also that low-value or obstructing characteristics (e.g., aggregation) can be perceived among members as valuable, enabling them to act. This highlights a divergence in members’ perceptions of collaboration values compared to what research has argued constitutes successful communication practices of interorganisational collaborations.
Positioning of collaboration values in relation to the broader patterns of communication
The following section presents these collaboration values more closely by departing from the various ways in which the turn to digital collaboration was perceived to influence members’ abilities to generate their collaboration values. The subsections are supported by excerpts from the interviews, explained by the communicational contrasts and their connections to each other.
The first overarching collaboration value was related to the practice of monitoring, which was perceived by members as an enabler to create mitigative initiatives by receiving information about particular questions, projects, or other organisations. In this sense, monitoring was a meaning-making practice dependent upon an environment in which other participants shared challenges, projects, ideas, and more through communicational features of aggregation and representation (see Figure 2). Respondents perceived that gaining this insight was a precondition for finding the authority to act on the information. However, although the collaboration value of monitoring was widely acknowledged among the respondents, the gains from monitoring were perceived differently.
Respondents from private organisations perceived that the interorganisational collaboration provided them with the opportunity to monitor and support their interests. Part of the private organisational logic was to lobby for their product or inform themselves of their area of interest. A private representative phrased it as follows:
It is of course about gaining external influences to get ideas, but it is obviously also about influencing. And… we see the climate as… [our product] has a very important role for the climate as a solution and there is of course a point in collaborating to communicate that solution and make others… share our reality.
Monitoring whether other members shared their “reality” was conducted by observing discussions in an aggregational and representational communication manner to prepare to advocate (“influencing”) for their mitigative solution. Monitoring was thereby perceived as a search for opportunities and, in this sense, a prerequisite for finding the authority to engage.
In a similar sense, the authorities gained from monitoring were also identified among respondents from the convener. To fulfil national governmental directives of coordinating regional climate change mitigation in order to achieve regional and national environmental targets, monitoring was perceived as essential.
I mean we have this directive to work with these questions and to push […] so really, we are fulfilling this directive of ours and we see this [collaboration] as a tool. For one thing, [the directive] says that we are to work with interorganisational collaboration, but it is also a tool to achieve… we are to achieve these [environmental] targets.
While private respondents perceived monitoring as a search for opportunity, respondents from the convener perceived it as a search to enact their societal responsibility. These respondents perceived the collaboration as “a tool” with which to fulfil governmental directives and, in this sense, provide the authority to do their job. Monitoring was therefore not used to develop their own organisation but a search for authority to influence “other organisations [to] carry them [mitigative actions] through”. Similar to private representatives, the convener valued a communication practice that encouraged others to express ideas, challenges, projects, and so on, which allowed the convener to assist in the process. A representative for the convener argued that this enabled them to support with, for example, knowledge about “the latest subsidies, [we could] maybe give administrative support […] at best we could provide some form of… what to call it… technological verdicts. I mean, we have experts”. In this sense, the convener perceived that monitoring was both a way of encouraging their authority and responsibility to act.
However, unlike other members, the convener had an accepted authority to shape the interorganisational collaboration’s communication practices. Representatives from the convener expressed that they actively tried to adhere to members’ expectations (see also Clarke & Peterson, 2016) by creating a relaxed and informal collaborative practice where members were “having a nice time”. This was intended to encourage members to avoid conflict and voice what they needed assistance with. The conveners perceived that they used their authority to afford the opportunity of monitoring (i.e., through representation and aggregation) in order to provide steppingstones toward communication that involved exploration and engagement among members. Having actors that are able to encourage exploration has been suggested to bring better conditions for collaborative progress (e.g., Porter et al., 2018). Here, monitoring enabled members to avoid blame games and issues deemed too controversial and instead encouraged explorations of aspects in the conveners’ interests. That is, regional awareness and “knowledge of what is actually happening” are necessary to assist as a collaborator and a governmental authority. This investigation thereby extends the understanding of the conveners’ important role in interorganisational collaboration communication by pointing at the collaboration values that inform
However, the ability to monitor was perceived as disrupted following the digital switchover. Creating a socialising atmosphere in the digital sphere was perceived as difficult, resulting in an environment far from “relaxed”. Notably, representatives of the convener held the view that transitioning to the digital sphere created an anticipation to provide interesting and novel information, since “now the world is our playground”. This perception led the convener to leverage its authority to introduce more “spectacular” information and place greater emphasis on the representation of external actors. This approach made it difficult to monitor the challenges and ideas of other members, thus impeding members’ ability to collaborate and provide assistance. A representative of the convener stressed that “it is now really difficult for me to really know what is going on between meetings”.
Although monitoring was primarily perceived as dependent on the communicational contrasts of aggregation and representation, members expressed that spontaneous interaction with other members in social events, such as joint lunches and coffee breaks, could also enable this monitoring. Again, transitioning to digital eliminated these circumstances. As a representative of the convener phrased it: “When you do not have these coffee break discussions or, you know, are able to brainstorm just before or after a meeting, when you do not meet… that’s what you are missing”.
In both formal and informal settings, monitoring, as constitutive of interorganisational collaboration practice, should be understood as members’ communicational search for opportunities and the authority to address the challenges faced by others. In collaborations where the mission is to continuously develop, initiate, and carry through interorganisational activities, having the opportunity to enact is an important communication condition for turning monitoring into collaboration value.
While the value of monitoring was oriented toward observation, the collaboration value of networking was related to the communicational activities of socialisation and was thereby understood as closer to the contrasts of exploration and engagement. Networking was a collaboration value in which members perceived that their membership in the interorganisational collaboration gave them increased authority to act in various settings. However, there were variations in the perceived value of networking that were influenced by members’ sectoral belonging.
The collaboration value generated from networking was influenced by members’ professional interests and belonging. For private respondents, this manifested in their selective dedication to particular areas or issues about which to collaborate. As a private company owner phrased it: “Well, there are not that many companies in the [interorganisational collaboration], so what I do is I search for those I could collaborate with”. Whether the interest was in food, transportation, energy, or another area, these members focused their attention on topics and members directly related to these issues. Private actors thus perceived that free socialisation, interpreted as related to the communicational contrasts of exploration and engagement, was supportive of networking (see Figure 2). Slots, such as breaks, discussions in smaller groups, or joint lunches, were expressed as particularly valuable, but meetings focused on presentations and information were also perceived as steppingstones for more explorative discussions. As a product developer from a private organisation argued, these could provide icebreakers for further discussions, and “you never knew where those [discussions] could take you”.
These socialising opportunities were perceived as pockets of exploration that could build new alliances and bridges into other settings. Private representatives argued that mitigating climate change was not limited to their activities in this particular interorganisational collaboration but was carried out through a network of multiple collaborations and arenas. Networking was thereby supported by a perceived authority attributed to respondents’ membership. A mutual membership also supported them in communicating and acting in other settings. As a private sector representative phrased it:
As with electrification, well then, I can make contact with [a representative in the interorganisational collaboration] or with, I don’t know, [municipality in the collaboration] to discuss it [at another arena], but this is not connected to “how do we solve the problems and challenges that [the interorganisational collaboration] faces”. It is about collaborating for that – this small part we both have an interest in.
This excerpt shows a mutual communicational influence among a network of similar interorganisational collaborations, connected by the ability to explore and engage socially. The analysis thereby goes in line with previous studies pointing to the importance of ways in which such collaborations communicationally construct their membership (e.g., Cooper, 2021) and develops these insights by suggesting that membership is also a subject of construction and has potential for action in other interorganisational collaboration settings. Through membership, members are perceived as authorised to extend the agency of the collaboration.
For public sector representatives, networking was not dependent on pockets of socialisation but rather on how the affordances of digital media supported the ability to generate collaboration value by connecting their multiplicity of already established networks. In the Swedish public sector, regional public organisations (i.e., municipalities and regional authorities) have ongoing, close, and routine collaborative initiatives concerning various societal issues (Hall, 2020), including climate change. These respondents argued that “you know most of them [public representatives] from different constellations” (Sustainability strategist, public organisation). For public sector representatives, these close relationships were regarded as necessary to create generative knowledge and to “build something durable together and to get to know each other […] when looking to unite, you need to meet, you need to talk about things” (CEO, municipal company).
However, the high number of long-distance meetings made it challenging for public actors to generate anything “durable”. Prior to the digital switch, most meetings were located in the regional capital, which made it difficult for long-distant members to participate in every meeting. Public sector representatives, particularly decision-influencers, therefore saw a positive development following the digital transition, since less dependence on the
The switch thereby created a collaborative continuity that enabled representatives to not only explore ideas but also develop an authority to engage in the work of other public organisations. Now, “it became okay to write something in the chat or in an e-mail” (Sustainability strategist, public organisation), which developed into further communication:
I do not think we have ever spoken this much with each other as we have done now. I mean, it was not only a transition but suddenly you found that it was really easy to convene short half-hour or one-hour meetings. Those more or less rained over you.
However, while the digital switch supported networking for the public respondents, it constrained networking for the private. For public organisations, collaborative continuity allowed members to become “more active” in their community of practice. However, due to the reduction of spontaneous pockets of socialisation, the switch constrained the abilities of private actors to select topics and collaborators. Private representatives therefore perceived that collaboration had turned into a “debriefing” (Head of sustainability, private organisation) from the convener, and that “[collaboration] has maybe been more maintained than developed” (Product developer, private organisation). What “made it even worse” was the choice of the digital platform, which did not have the affordances to allow for addressing individual co-participants without addressing everyone else. Opportunities to explore others’ ideas were widely missed among private respondents, since “you don’t get this small talk, which makes it very agenda-driven with instructions and then it gets rather… difficult to collaborate” (Head of sustainability, private organisation).
The collaboration value of networking was perceived as built upon the communication contrasts of exploration and engagement, in which membership was attributed the authority to bridge organisational boundaries, intensify communities of practice, and influence other interorganisational collaborations. However, the analysis illustrated how members perceived the collaboration value of networking as dependent on different communication characteristics. For private representatives, going digital reduced the authority from networking, and they could make less use of their membership, while public representatives were strengthened by continuity and the potential of connecting ongoing networks. The collaboration value of networking thereby reveals an interesting interrelationship between interorganisational collaborations but also clearly exemplifies the asymmetric consequences brought by switches in communication practices.
The third collaboration value referred to how members perceived that they were empowered to act in their home organisation through the information, inspiration, and ideas brought from the interorganisational collaboration. This collaboration value was attributed to a communication practice that was explorative and, in particular, emerged (see Figure 2) by mediating decisions into forms of authority (e.g., in written and formalised documents).
Respondents generally attributed an overarching understanding that the collaborative practice supported their development as professionals. Members expressed an ability to use the information developed or presented in the interorganisational collaboration to empower themselves as informed professionals and were provided morale empowerment as responsible leaders:
I think it is important for our employees to see that they have owners who care about the question. That we are not burying our heads in the sand and continuing to sell as many environmentally destructive products as we can.
However, many respondents emphasised the solitude of working on sustainability issues (see also Gustavsson, 2008), in which their professional role was mainly about influencing decision-makers by working as “internal lobbyists” in their home organisation. These respondents perceived the need to fight for ideas and initiatives since their home organisation was “not really convinced that you need to do anything” (Politician) as members of the interorganisational collaboration. These respondents argued that explorative and engaging discussions with the ability to “examine things from different angles” helped develop their roles as professionals, enabled them to push mitigative initiatives further, and essentially empowered them to do their job: “the [interorganisational collaboration group] has helped me to order my own work, I can tell you that. It is my… because I was pretty lost when I stepped into this a long time ago. […] No one sighs or moans, no, if you have an opinion, it is considered” (Sustainability strategist, public organisation).
Particularly empowering for these members were situations in which the communicational practice of the interorganisational collaboration evolved from mere conversations into being materially mediated or documented as emerging into something collective and substantial with the potential to provide authority in intraorganisational discussions. The value of these materially mediated forms of authority were about getting “something to back you up that is bigger than just yourself and all of your ideas about how to move forward. Here is something about… something that is regionally developed, it carries a greater weight” (Sustainability strategist, public organisation).
The authority brought from this mediation has been described in the literature before (e.g., Vásquez et al., 2018, refer to it simply as materialisation; or Vlaar et al., 2006, as formalisation). However, in this investigation, I suggest that such empowerment must be understood from an asymmetric distribution of authority among members, which was particularly distinguishable in the way in which members perceived the expected impact of their joint action programme. As with networking, this difference was most striking between public and private organisations. Public organisations, with established routines for developing and implementing strategic and collaborative documents, described the programme as “the foundation of all my work. To realise the joint actions to which we have committed” (Sustainability strategist, public organisation). However, respondents from the private sector did not perceive the same authority in the documents, which was, for example, described as “a million pages long and only read by the one who wrote it” (Product developer, private organisation). Nevertheless, some private representatives did recognise value in the programme but described a carefulness to what they promised in such documents, with hopes of overdelivering at the time of evaluation (Head of sustainability, private organisation).
The analysis suggests that the authority arising from the joint action programme was dependent on the community of practice in which it was meant to operate (see Wenger, 1998). Therefore, the extensive work to develop the joint action programme during the Covid-19 pandemic can be understood as having asymmetric value among its members. This prioritisation primarily worked in favour of public decision-influencers, while members that generated collaboration values in other ways (i.e., primarily from the private sector) perceived a collaboration practice in which “everything became rather eviscerated because… well, a major point about [collaboration] is not really to sit and make a bunch of decisions but to network” (Head of sustainability, private organisation).
Although the collaboration value was asymmetrically distributed, the analysis indicated that a mediated form of empowerment was interconnected with other collaboration values. Specifically, respondents perceived that authority from documents and decisions was dependent on them being “regionally developed”. In this sense, to attribute authority to a document needed the support of uniting members who both saw and didn’t see the value in the interorganisational collaboration document. Essentially, the collaboration value of empowering was perceived as mutually dependent on the existence of other collaboration values.
In this study, I analysed how collaboration value within an interorganisational collaboration is communicationally supported and constrained. The findings support previous research suggesting that such collaborations hold a multitude of asymmetric collaboration values that extend beyond merely achieving collaborative goals (Gray, 1989; Koschmann et al., 2017). The study expands the existing research by showing that factors that influence collaboration value, such as organisational preconditions or members’ professional belonging, are also supported by certain communicational characteristics. By departing from Koschmann’s idea of communicational contrasts, the analysis illustrated the communicative competition and interconnections between these collaboration values (see Figure 2). This analysis highlights how communication underpins an intricate interplay of factors, such as members’ sectoral belonging, collaboration roles, membership construction, and organisational logics. The study thereby strengthens the argument that evaluating the societal impact of interorganisational collaborations requires a more comprehensive framework than merely measuring goal attainment. Members’ communication practices are important in such a framework in its ways of supporting or constraining certain forms of action among members. Acknowledging this relationship contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how establishing interorganisational collaborations generates potential for societal impact that would not occur otherwise, as well as the elements that might constrain such an impact.
The investigation contributes to a broadened communication-centred understanding of interorganisational collaborations by providing insights into factors that inform members’ communication practices. Notably, the study showed how communication elements, emphasised in previous research as constraining collaborative progress (such as an aggregational practice), can be perceived as valuable by some members. In this way, the study highlights how the diversity that characterises interorganisational collaborations is also present in the perceptions that members have about valuable communication. Investigating the communication-value connections enabled this variety of reasoning among respondents to be connected to the idea of a continuous
From a practical standpoint, this study suggests that there are benefits for interorganisational collaborations in adopting versatile communication practices to support a wide distribution of collaborative values. Effectively, addressing complex societal issues in a fair and just manner requires an awareness of the needs of members (Brülde & Duus-Otterström, 2015), including the relationship between the communication practices of an interorganisational collaboration and the collaboration values of its members. In this way, interorganisational collaborations that recognise communication as asymmetrically influential on members’ collaboration values would potentially support a widely distributed societal impact. These insights into the opportunities and challenges stemming from communication practices in interorganisational collaborations will hopefully spark further discussions relating to the role of communication in improving their impact.
Although the empirical material is based on only eleven interviews, the research design aimed for a representational and balanced selection of respondents rather than a large number. The emphasis was on including respondents from the same bounded system (i.e., an interorganisational collaboration) who represented various sectors and professional backgrounds. Nevertheless, an increased number of respondents might have provided other themes and suggested different relationalities. My hope is that this study will encourage future case-based approaches, leading to a deeper understanding of collaboration values and their communicational constitutions.