An environment to support negotiation and contracting in collaborative networks

During the last years, manufacturing and service industries faced a global change in the production paradigm. They have to continuously adapt their operating principles in reaction to new business or collaboration opportunities, where a natural reaction is a shift to a new business paradigm with the creation of strategic alliances for product or services development, but also for innovative and emergent business services design. On one hand, the process of creating such alliances can be rather simple if organizations share the same geographical and cultural context. But on the other hand, considering different conditions, there might be a low success rate in the creation of successful consortia. One known reason for such low rate are the delays resulting from negotiations in the establishment of collaboration commitments, represented by contracts or agreements, which are crucial in the creation of such alliances. The collaborative networks discipline covers the study of networks of organizations specially when supported by computer networks. This thesis contributes with research in this field describing the creation process of virtual organizations, and proposing a negotiation support environment to help participants in the negotiation of the consortia creation process and in the co-design of new business services. A negotiation support environment is therefore proposed and described with its main requirements, adopted negotiation protocol, conceptual architecture, models, and software environment. To demonstrate the feasibility of the implementation of the proposed systems, a proof-ofconcept software prototype was implemented and tested using some specific scenarios. This thesis work has been validated adopting a methodology that includes: (i) validation in the research community; (ii) validation in a solar industry network; and (iii) validation by comparison analysis

Facilitating collaborative entrepreneurship within an SME network

Facilitating collaborative entrepreneurship within an SME network Miles et al (2005) describe collaborative entrepreneurship (CE) as an “organisation” composed of firms from different industries, whose collaborative abilities allow them to pursue a joint strategy of continuous innovation. Franco and Haase (2013) define it as “the creation of something of economic value arising out of new, jointly created ideas that emerge from the sharing of information and knowledge” (p. 681). The success of small and micro businesses is pivotal to the success of the world’s market economies. The adoption of the CE model in the context of small and micro businesses, who often lack the resources to develop products, would seem logical, but this remains an under-researched field. The current study used an action research approach with the researcher’s business as a partner organisation in a collaborative venture and the researcher operating as facilitator. This study used a social capital theory perspective to understand the changing relationships, and how facilitation adapts to maintain knowledge transfer in a network of small and micro owner/managed business, as they use a collaborative entrepreneurial model to innovate products and services for the spray-tanning industry. The study was conducted in a network of five business based in the UK, USA and India. Three of the businesses were actively involved in a traditional supply chain with the others becoming involved in response to changing market conditions. Data was collected in a series of field diaries was over a 24-month period with sources including day to day business activities, formal and informal meetings, telephone calls and the researcher’s reflections. The qualitative thematic analysis revealed different issues at different points in the life cycle of a collaborative entrepreneurship venture alongside insights into how potential challenges were addressed through facilitation. Phase 1 – transforming – as new members were integrated into the group issues of trust related to the structure of the network and information silos were highlighted. An appreciative inquiry intervention was used to address these issues. Phase 2 – stabilisation – deals with how the network managed innovation both in and outside the network. Maintaining momentum became a challenge as sales plateaued. Dialogue within the action research group that addressed issues of degeneration highlighted how tensions were managed. The final phase – addressed issues of readiness and legacy and how the network was maintained as innovation slowed within the network and out-of-network innovation accelerated. Reduced contact among group members revealed differences in individual perceptions of the psychological contract developed during the collaboration and strategies were developed to ensure the network remained ready to collaborate and innovate as market demands dictated. The study contributes to the theory of collaborative entrepreneurship within a small and micro business context through the use of a dynamic approach to self-facilitation with the role of facilitator rotating among the group members based on relevant skill and knowledge. The study contributes to current knowledge of facilitation of small business networks and the use of appreciative inquiry methods in small groups. A model of the dynamic nature of a collaborative entrepreneurship venture among small and micro businesses and the role that action learning can play, was developed