On the Evolution of Trust, Distrust, and Formal Coordination and Control in Interorganizational Relationships: Towards an Integrative Framework

In this article, we discuss the evolution of trust, distrust, and formal coordination and control in interorganizational relationships. We suggest that the degrees to which managers trust and distrust their partners during initial stages of cooperation leave strong imprints on the development of these relationships in later stages of collaboration. This derives from the impact of trust and distrust on: (1) formal coordination and control; (2) interorganizational performance; and (3) the interpretations that managers attribute to the behavior of their partners. Collectively, our arguments give rise to a conceptual framework, which indicates that there is a high propensity for interorganizational relationships to develop along vicious or virtuous cycles. By integrating and reconciling previous work on the trust-control nexus, and by emphasizing the dynamics associated with it, the article contributes to a more comprehensive and refined understanding of the evolution of interorganizational cooperation.evolution;trust;distrust;formal coordination;interorganizational relationship;formal control

Explorative R&D collaboration: Searching for effective and efficient governance mechanisms.

Explorative R&D collaboration is an important alternative for the internal development of new technologies. The high failure rate of this type of inter-organizational collaboration, however, indicates that governing explorative R&D collaboration is not a straightforward task. Moreover, we argue that different theoretical perspectives have formulated contradictory advice of how to govern explorative R&D collaboration. Given high risks of opportunistic behavior and high coordination costs within explorative R&D collaboration, Transaction Cost Economics and Organization Theory emphasize the need for formal governance mechanisms. The innovation literature, however, stresses that formal governance mechanisms prohibit the carrying out of explorative activities which are necessary to develop new technologies. We also suggest two alternatives to address these paradoxical requirements. In specific, we argue that effective and efficient governance of explorative R&D collaboration can be achieved by 1) collecting second-hand information about potential partners, allowing for the substitution of formal governance by relational governance, and 2) combining formal and relational governance mechanisms. Based on these theoretical findings, we emphasize the importance of longitudinal, multi-level research to study the characteristics and dynamics of different governance mechanisms within inter-organizational collaboration.Behavior; Characteristics; Coordination; Cost; Costs; Dynamics; Economics; Governance; Information; Innovation; Organization theory; R&D; Requirements; Research; Risk; Studies; Substitution; Technology; Theory; Transaction cost;

On Being Responsible

Joint responsibility is a mental and behavioural state which captures and formalizes many of the intuitive underpinnings of collaborative problem solving. It defines the pre-conditions which must hold before such activity can commence, how individuals should behave (in their own problem solving and towards others) once such problem solving has begun and minimum conditions which group participants must satisfy

Coping with Problems of Understanding in Interorganizational Relationships: Using Formalization as a Means to make Sense

Research into the management of interorganizational relationships has hitherto primarily focused on problems of coordination, control and to a lesser extent, legitimacy. In this article, we assert that partners cooperating in such relationships are also confronted with ‘problems of understanding’. Such problems arise from differences between partners in terms of culture, experience, structure and industry, and from the uncertainty and ambiguity that participants in interorganizational relationships experience in early stages of collaboration. Building on Karl Weick’s theory of sensemaking, we advance that participants in interorganizational relationships use formalization as a means to make sense of their partners, the interorganizational relationships in which they are engaged and the contexts in which these are embedded so as to diminish problems of understanding. We offer a systematic overview of the mechanisms through which formalization facilitates sensemaking, including: (1) focusing participants’ attention; (2) provoking articulation, deliberation and reflection; (3) instigating and maintaining interaction; and (4) reducing judgment errors and individual biases, and diminishing incompleteness and inconsistency of cognitive representations. In this way, the article contributes to a better understanding of the relationships between formalization and sensemaking in collaborative relationships, and it carries Karl Weick’s thinking on the relationship between sensemaking and organizing forward in the context of interorganizational management.Formalization;Sensemaking;Interorganizational Cooperation;Understanding

The Dynamics of Intentions in Collaborative Intentionality

An adequate formulation of collective intentionality is crucial for understanding group activity and for modeling the mental state of participants in such activities. Although work on collective intentionality in philosophy, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science has many points of agreement, several key issues remain under debate. This paper argues that the dynamics of intention – in particular, the inter-related processes of plan-related group decision making and intention updating – play crucial roles in an explanation of collective intentionality. Furthermore, it is in these dynamic aspects that coordinated group activity differs most from individual activity. The paper specifies a model of the dynamics of agent intentions in the context of collaborative activity. Its integrated treatment of group decision making and coordinated updating of group-related intentions fills an important gap in prior accounts of collective intentionality, thus helping to resolve a long-standing debate about the nature of intentions in group activity. The paper also defines an architecture for collaboration-capable computer agents that satisfies the constraints of the model and is a natural extension of the standard architecture for resource-bounded agents operating as individuals. The new architecture is both more principled and more complete than prior architectures for collaborative multi-agent systems.Engineering and Applied Science

On the Evolution of Trust, Distrust, and Formal Coordination and Control in Interorganizational Relationships: Towards an Integrative Framework

In this article, we discuss the evolution of trust, distrust, and formal coordination and control in interorganizational relationships. We suggest that the degrees to which managers trust and distrust their partners during initial stages of cooperation leave strong imprints on the development of these relationships in later stages of collaboration. This derives from the impact of trust and distrust on: (1) formal coordination and control; (2) interorganizational performance; and (3) the interpretations that managers attribute to the behavior of their partners. Collectively, our arguments give rise to a conceptual framework, which indicates that there is a high propensity for interorganizational relationships to develop along vicious or virtuous cycles. By integrating and reconciling previous work on the trust-control nexus, and by emphasizing the dynamics associated with it, the article contributes to a more comprehensive and refined understanding of the evolution of interorganizational cooperation

Situation based strategic positioning for coordinating a team of homogeneous agents

. In this paper we are proposing an approach for coordinating a team ofhomogeneous agents based on a flexible common Team Strategy as well as onthe concepts of Situation Based Strategic Positioning and Dynamic Positioningand Role Exchange. We also introduce an Agent Architecture including a specifichigh-level decision module capable of implementing this strategy. Ourproposal is based on the formalization of what is a team strategy for competingwith an opponent team having opposite goals. A team strategy is composed of aset of agent types and a set of tactics, which are also composed of several formations.Formations are used for different situations and assign each agent a defaultspatial positioning and an agent type (defining its behaviour at several levels).Agents reactivity is also introduced for appropriate response to the dynamicsof the current situation. However, in our approach this is done in a way thatpreserves team coherence instead of permitting uncoordinated agent behaviour.We have applied, with success, this coordination approach to the RoboSoccersimulated domain. The FC Portugal team, developed using this approach wonthe RoboCup2000 (simulation league) European and World championshipsscoring a total of 180 goals and conceding none