Discourse and Collaboration: The Role of Conversations and Collective Identity

Abstract

We explore the relationship between discourse and interorganizational collaboration, arguing that interorganizational collaboration can be understood as the product of sets of conversations that draw on existing discourses. Specifically, we argue that effective collaboration, which we define as cooperative, interorganizational action that produces innovative, synergistic solutions and balances divergent stakeholder concerns, emerges out of a two-stage process. In this process conversations produce discursive resources that create a collective identity and translate it into effective collaboration.

Team Boundary Spanning: Strategic Implications for the Implementation and use of Enterprise Social Media

“…Team boundary spanning -sometimes also referred to as team boundary work or team boundary management -can be defined as a team's or group's effort to establish and manage interactions with parties in the external environment that enhance the team and others linked to the team in meeting performance goals (Ancona, 1990;Ancona and Caldwell, 1992;Marrone et al, 2007). Team boundary spanning thus involves the engagement of diverse participants in a joint discourse, joint identification (Kilker, 1999;Hinds and Bailey, 2003;Hardy et al, 2005), as well as the constitution of joint practices via the use of joint artifacts (Levina and Vaast, 2005) with actors in the external environment.…”

From ivory towers to online bazaars? The internet, social media and competing discourses in the newspaper industry

“…As noted earlier, discourses both construct social reality, and are influenced by the social conditions (Giddens, 1984;Hardy et al, 2005). As the identified discourses differ with regard to metaphors and concepts, objects and subject positions, they also have varying manifestations as social practices and thus different outcomes in terms of learning.…”

“…Language constitutes the subject' s position within the discursive practice (Child & Heavens, 2001). From the discoursive point of view, a collective identity exists as a discoursive object is produced in and through conversations; it is shared as members engage in the discoursive practices that reproduce it (Hardy et al, 2005). In practice, specialized groups attach their own values and express them through their shared terminology (Child & Heavens, 2001).…”

“…Language reflects reality but is also a means to construct and reproduce the surrounding world (see also Hardy et al, 2005). More specifically, discourses construct concepts, objects and (subject) positions (Hardy & Phillips, 2004).…”

Alliance strategy: context, process, and requirements

“…Contradiction of social narratives occurs when understandings, identity formation and action prove too diverse and unrelated (Finney, 2002;Hardy et al, 2005). For instance, a potential partner may not be interested in a proposal, thereby shortcutting an organizational selection process (Deken et al, 2016).…”