Designing Strategic Alliances

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Designing Strategic Alliances

• C. Koliba
• Green Awassa Atelier
• March, 2006

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• Collaborative management is a concept that
  describes the process of facilitating and
  operating in multiorganizational arrangements to
  solve problems that cannot be solved, or solved
  easily, by single organizations. Collaboration
  is a purposive relationship designed to solve a
  problem by creating or discovering a solution
  within a given set of constraints Agronoff
  McGuire p.4

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Vertical Horizontal Relations Across Sectors
and Levels
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Implications for Collaboration Theory

• Vertical
• Command and control, the bureaucracy as the unit
  of analysis
• PrincipalAgent Theory
• Inter-branch relations
• Intergovernmental relations

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Vertical collaboration activity

• Information seeking
• General funding of programs and projects
• New funding of programs and projects
• Interpretation of standards and rules
• General program guidance
• Technical assistance
• Adjustment seeking
• Regulatory relief, flexibility or waiver
• Statutory relief or flexibility
• Change in policy
• Funding innovation for program
• Model program involvement
• Performance-based discretion (Agronoff and
  McGuire 2003)

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• Horizontal
• Social capital theory
• Network theory
• Strategic alliance theory
• Communities of practice theory

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Horizontal Collaborative Activities

• Policymaking and strategy making
• Gain policymaking assistance
• Engage in formal partnerships
• Engage in joint policymaking
• Consolidate policy effort
• Resource exchange
• Seek financial resources
• Employ joint financial incentives
• Contracted planning and implementation
• Project-based work
• Partnership for a particular project
• Seek technical resources
• Agronoff and McGuire, 2003 p.70-71

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Functional roles

• Funders
• Advocates
• Service-providers

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Characteristic of the most effective networks

• They are integrated (preferably centralized)
• They enjoy direct rather than fragmented fiscal
  control by the state
• They are most likely in an environment where
  resources are plentiful
• They are most likely under conditions of
  stability. P.7-8

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Enter social capital theory (Schuller, Baron
and Fields Social capital a review and a
critique)

• Bourdieu (1997, 51) Social capital is defined as
  the aggregate of the actual or potential
  resources which are linked to possession of a
  durable network of more or less institutionalized
  relationships of mutual acquaintance and
  recognition which provides each of its members
  with the backing of collectively-owned capital.
  P.4-5

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Social Capital is a concept comprising

• Social Networks
• Open
• Closed
• Trust
• Collective Norms
• (Putnam)

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Trust

• The essential feature of all trust relations is
  their reciprocal nature. Trust tends to evoke
  trust, distrust, to evoke distrust. (Fox 1974,
  66) P.17
• Vertical and lateral trustp.17
• Thus high transactions costs are associated with
  monitoring performance In the absence of a price
  mechanism to determine costand in the absence of
  outcome data to determine qualitytrust and the
  reputation for credible commitments become
  important in determining who it is that agencies
  contract with, and for what services. P.3

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Keast, Mandell, Brown and Woolcocks Network
structures working differently and changing
expectations

• Networking is a common term that refers to
  people making connections with each other by
  going to meetings and conferences, as well as
  through the use of communication technology such
  as email and Web discussion groups (Alter and
  Hage 1993 Considine 2001). P.364
• Networks occur when links among a number of
  organizations or individuals become formalized
  p.364
• A network structure forms when these people
  realize they (and the organization they
  represent) are only one small piece of the total
  picture. P.364

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Wohlstetter, Smith and Malloys Strategic
alliances in action

• Strategic alliances are groups of
  organizationsnonprofits, for-profit and
  publicvoluntarily working together to solve
  problems that are too large for any one
  organizations to solve on its own. P.1
• Strategic alliances as voluntary. P.1
• Review of lit.
• Alliances move through several phases as they
  develop and evolve
• Alliances are initiated to meet a variety of
  needs
• The operation of alliances requires certain
  organizational structures and processes and
• A variety of factors influence the progress of
  alliances. P.1

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Phases of Alliance

• Initiation phase
• Role of a champion. P.2
• ComplementarityOrganizations often decide to
  partner not because they have the same needs, but
  because they have complementary needs and
  assets. P.2
• Compatible goals. P.6

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• Operations phase
• An alliance between two or more organizations,
  in essence, becomes an organization itself during
  the operations phase. P.2
• Importance of an accountability plan. P.3
• Leaders in alliances assume several role
  architects, information brokers, boundary
  spanners. P.3

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Governance structuresformal vs. informal

• We observed that more complex alliances-- those
  with several players, tasks and objectivestended
  to rely on more formalized structures, whereas
  simpler alliances were often more comfortable
  with informal processes p.7
• Importance of communication mechanismsp.8
• Leaders the broker monitored information flow
  within the partnership, created ways to enhance
  information distribution, and ensured that
  relevant information found its way to appropriate
  individuals and work teams. P.8
• Relationship between evaluation and
  accountability. P.9

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Gajdas Utilizing collaboration theory to
evaluate strategic alliances

• Importance of program evaluationrelevant
  questions
• How do we determine if partnerships have been
  strengthened or if new linkages have been formed
  as a result of this strategic alliance?
• How do we describe community wide
  infrastructure and how can we measure and/or
  characterize its development over time
• What does it mean to link agencies?
• Is our strategic alliance becoming increasingly
  seamless or collaborative over time?
• What level or breadth of collaboration is needed
  to achieve particular outcomes?
• What is the point at which efforts to increase
  collaboration are simply a waste of resources,
  without increasing desired outcomes? p.67

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Snyder, Wenger and Briggs Communities of
practice in government

• Many of our most urgent social problems call
  for flexible arrangements, constant adaptation,
  and the savvy blending of expertise and
  credibility that requires crossing the boundaries
  of organizations, sectors, and governance
  levels p.1

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• Communities of practice are groups of people
  who share a concern, a set of problems, or a
  passion about a topic, and who deepen their
  knowledge and expertise in this area by
  interacting on an ongoing basis. They operate
  as social learning systems where practitioners
  connect to solve problems, share ideas, set
  standards, build tools, and develop relationships
  with peer and stakeholders They feature
  peer-to-peer collaborative activities to build
  member skills and steward the knowledge assets of
  organizations and society (Snyder et al., 2003
  17). P.1

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• One can design systems of accountability and
  policies for communities of practice to live by,
  but one cannot design the practices that will
  emerge in response to such institutional systems.
  
• One can design roles, but one cannot design the
  identities that will be constructed through these
  roles.
• One can design visions, but one cannot design the
  allegiance necessary to align energies behind
  those visions.

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• One can produce affordances for the negotiation
  of meaning, but not meaning itself.
• One can design work processes but not work
  practices one can design a curriculum but not
  learning.
• One can attempt to institutionalize a community
  of practice, but the community of practice itself
  will slip through the cracks and remain distinct
  from its institutionalization. Wenger P.229

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• Boundariesno matter how negotiable or
  unspokenrefer to discontinuities, to lines of
  distinction between inside and outside,
  membership and nonmembership, inclusion and
  exclusion. Peripheriesno matter how
  narrowrefer to continuities, to areas of overlap
  and connections, to windows and meeting places,
  and to organized and casual possibilities for
  participation offered to outsiders or newcomers.
  Wenger P.120

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• Mobilizing Community Assets to Form Strategic
  Alliances

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The Commodification of Service

• You will be better because I know better.
  McKnight p.10
• Who is the I here?
• In what context have we been the you?
• the I?

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Some core concepts

• The professional co-optation of community
  McKnight p. 12
• The capacity of people and their communities to
  solve their own problems McKnight p. 16
• Iatrogenic effects McKnight p. 20

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Relation between Professions and Community /
Clients and Citizens (p. 106)

• Power

Professions Clients
Communities Citizens
Time
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Double-loop learning

• There is in this sort of episode a double
  feedback loop which connects the detection of
  error not only to strategies and assumptions for
  effective performance but to the very norms which
  define effective performance. Argryis and Schon
  P. 1344
• Resolves incompatible organizational norms by
  setting new priorities and weighing of norms, or
  by restructuring the norms themselves together
  with associated strategies and assumptions.
  Argryis and Schon P.1354

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Strategies employed to gain compliance

• Coercive (People are forced by the threat of
  penalties.)
• Remunerative(People are attracted by the promise
  of rewards such as money, career advancement,
  good grades, better working conditions, political
  advantage, enhanced social standing, and having
  psychological needs met.)
• Normative(People are compelled because they
  believe what they are doing is right and good
  and/or because they find involvement
  intrinsically satisfying.)
• (Sergiovanni 1995 50 paraphrasing Etzioni
  1961)