Maintenance of cross-sector partnerships: the role of frames in sustained collaboration

We examine the framing mechanisms used to maintain a cross-sector partnership (XSP) that was created to address a complex long-term social issue. We study the first eight years of existence of an XSP that aims to create a market for recycled phosphorus, a nutrient that is critical to crop growth but whose natural reserves have dwindled significantly. Drawing on 27 interviews and over 3,000 internal documents, we study the evolution of different frames used by diverse actors in an XSP. We demonstrate the role of framing in helping actors to avoid some of the common pitfalls for an XSP, such as debilitating conflict, and in creating sufficient common ground to sustain collaboration. As opposed to a commonly held assumption in the XSP literature, we find that collaboration in a partnership does not have to result in a unanimous agreement around a single or convergent frame regarding a contentious issue. Rather, successful collaboration between diverse partners can also be achieved by maintaining a productive tension between different frames through ‘optimal’ frame plurality – not excessive frame variety that may prevent agreements from emerging, but the retention of a select few frames and the deletion of others towards achieving a narrowing frame bandwidth. One managerial implication is that resources need not be focussed on reaching a unanimous agreement among all partners on a single mega-frame vis-à-vis a contentious issue, but can instead be used to kindle a sense of unity in diversity that allows sufficient common ground to emerge, despite the variety of actors and their positions

Consilience for Universal Design : The Emergence of a Third Culture

Consilience offers a powerful mechanism for borrowing from other disciplines, thereby extending the scope of what can be known. This paper looks at the foundations of the activity of design as a means of providing IT systems that cater for diverse needs. Developing systems that are expected to satisfy needs continuously (i.e., systems that are expected to evolve) calls for a dynamic activity of design that is responsive to changes in the environment. The contrast with the scientific assumption of ordered development invokes a new classification, supported by insights from other disciplines that place the range of approaches in context. Design is neither orderly nor linear; it implies a continuous and active search to resolve trade-offs and satisfy changing constraints. The paper concludes by making a case for design as an alternative culture that borrows from, and supports, both the scientific and the literary cultures. Acceptance of the role of practice as an interface alongside the more traditional cultures enables researchers and practitioners to access and adopt a larger variety of methods and general approaches underpinning an even larger corpus of insights. Consilience can occur at different levels and offer a variety of benefits. Balancing scientific enquiry with artistic flair and creativity through careful sensemaking that supports sharing across cultures provides the greatest benefit from learning to look across rather than blindly focusing inwPeer reviewe