Collaborative Community

Sociologyindex, Community, Sociology Books 2011, Collaborative Community

Work is increasingly a matter of knowledgeable experts cooperating on projects in rapidly changing environments. Our research has attempted to identify the form of organization best equipped to support such work. We have reached two conclusions. First, this kind of work requires a strong sense of community that allows contributors to trust each other.

The two other main “tools” of organization, financial incentives and bureaucratic authority and procedures, are useful but ineffectual without a backdrop of community. Second, the kind of community needed today is very different from the traditional community based on loyalty; it takes a new form we call “collaborative [community].” A traditional bureaucracy emphasizes doing a good job; it values conscientiousness, reliability, loyalty, and devotion to duty.

In a collaborative community, this orientation is no longer enough: people must look beyond their jobs and take larger initiatives. The main question becomes not, “Did you do a good job?” but “Did you contribute to the mission?”

We call this value dimension of collaborative community “the ethic of interdependent contribution.” - PAUL ADLER AND CHARLES HECKSCHER

Collaborative Entrepreneurship: How Communities of Networked Firms Use Continuous Innovation to Create Economic Wealth by Raymond Miles, Grant Miles, and Charles Snow (Hardcover - Jun 1, 2005) “In writing this book, the authors have taken a pioneering step in developing a model for how collaborative entrepreneurship might work in practice....The overall result in an intriguing and stimulating read that shares a glimpse on tomorrow’s organizational thinking with today’s practitioners and academics.”—Organization Studies “The authors put forward a bold and compelling approach to meeting the challenge of delivering continuous innovation in the 21st century. Their vision of multi-firm collaborative networks offers a clear and insightful model for breaking through the barriers to innovation encountered by many organizations today, and represents the next generation of organizational thinking.”—Steven S Reinemund, Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo “Collaborative Entrepreneurship takes the reality of 21st century competition and proposes a new way of organizing to be successful in this environment. Sensitive to the attitudinal and ideological barriers to new ways of organizing, the authors offer a blueprint for future organizations and some practical ways to implement their vision.”—Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford Business School Anticipating the future environment of business, "Collaborative Entrepreneurship" discusses a revolutionary new competitive strategy of continuous innovation that fulfills the need for efficient provision of a constant stream of new products, services, and markets. The book explains how firms can build a collaborative community within which they can freely share in the creation of wealth through innovation with the assurance that the wealth they create will be equitably distributed. Today, the ability of firms to innovate is restricted by barriers both inside the firm and within their existing markets—barriers that produce limited knowledge utilization and incremental innovations. "Collaborative Entrepreneurship" describes how these barriers can be overcome so that shared knowledge can drive continuous, sustained innovation across a network of firms and markets.

The Firm as a Collaborative Community: Reconstructing Trust in the Knowledge Economy by Charles Heckscher and Paul Adler (Paperback - Oct 11, 2007) This volume explores the changing nature of community in modern corporations. Community within and between firms - the fabric of trust so essential to contemporary business - has long been based on loyalty. This loyalty has been largely destroyed by three decades of economic turbulence, downsizing, and restructuring. Yet community is more important than ever in an increasingly complex, knowledge-intensive economy. The thesis of this volume is that a new form of community is slowly emerging - one that is more flexible and wider in scope than the community of loyalty, and that transcends the limitations of both traditional Gemeinschaft and modern Gesellschaft. We call this form collaborative community. The trend towards collaborative community is difficult to detect amidst the ferocious forces of market and bureaucratic rationalization. But close analysis of some of America's most successful corporations reveals three dimensions of the emerging form: A shared ethic of interdependent contribution: distinct from the uneasy mix of loyalty and individualism that prevailed for so long; A formalized set of norms of interdependent process management that include iterative co-design, metaphoric search, and systematic mutual understanding: distinct from both rigid authority hierarchies and informal log-rolling; An interdependent social identity that supports these organizational features: distinct from both dependent, traditionalistic identities and the independence of the autonomous self that is often associated with Western culture. This volume is a collaborative effort of leading scholars in organization studies to delineate the new form of community and the forces encouraging and constraining its growth. The contributors combine sociology and psychology theory with detailed analysis of business cases at the firm and inter-firm level.

Collaborative Communities: Partnering for Profit in the Networked Economy by Jeffrey C. Shuman, Janice Twombly, and David Rottenberg (Hardcover - Jun 2001) Simply and logically, the authors argue that all companiesAespecially small onesAmust partner with other firms to satisfy customer needs and thereby thrive. Schuman, professor at Bentley College; Twombly, a CPA/consultant; and Rottenberg thoroughly explain how to create alliances with suppliers and other firms, and walk managers through the steps. Concise and insightful chapter summaries enhance this valuable primer. (June) Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.- From Publishers Weekly. "Collaboration between customers and companies is now the name of the game and it's what Collaborative Communities is all about." -- --Patricia B. Seybold, Author, Customers.com, The Customer Revolution, "Collaborative Communities illuminates an emerging pattern of business development fundamental to success in the networked economy." -- --Joseph Morone, President, Bentley College "Collaborative Communities provides deep insight into the implications of technology on business models in the 21st century. A great read." -- --George Conrades, Chairman and CEO, Akamai Technologies, Inc. "Running a customer-oriented business as described in Collaborative Communities is the basis for our success." -- --Eliot Tatelman, President, Jordan's Furniture, a division of Berkshire Hathaway "Smart companies know the future belongs to companies that choreograph their relationships with customers to maximize share of wallet." -- --Seth Godin, Author, Unleashing the Ideavirus and Permission Marketing Contesting Collaborative Community Engagement Dempsey, Sarah. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association Over the last decade, universities have begun institutionalizing a form of outreach centered on “community engagement.” These programs bring together academic researchers and community-based groups for the purposes of furthering the social and material needs of communities. As a particular mode of applied scholarship, community engagement embodies a larger set of claims about the academy’s role in addressing social problems. In this study, I utilize qualitative analysis to gain insight into community engagement from the perspective of academics and community-based participants involved in enacting such a partnership. A two-day planning meeting provides a rich context to explore the politics and ethics involved with building bridges between academics and community members. The data reveal how conflicts between principles of equality and difference emerged in this partnership, further challenging assumptions that collaboration automatically engenders equitable practice. Drawing upon transnational feminist theorizing and supported by participants’ critiques, I demonstrate the practical importance of a model of community engagement rooted in conceptions of solidarity.

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