Kourti, Isidora
(2013)
Between planned and emergent collaboration: boundary activation and identity development in the psychosocial space of a Greek educational partnership.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
This thesis aims to expand our understanding of inter-organisational collaborations by
exploring how the process of collaboration emerges over time and how collaboration
partners (re)form their identities in the developing collaboration space. For the
exploration of these aims, a practice-based study of inter-organisational collaborations
is followed.
The study analyses the KEDDY Aitoloakarnanias collaboration in Greece. In order to
examine how the KEDDY collaboration unfolds, a longitudinal ethnographic research
was conducted, collecting 43 in-depth interviews, 48 documents, observations of 13
partners’ meetings and numerous field notes. The data was analysed qualitatively using
thematic and narrative analysis.
The results show how, as they engaged in everyday working practices, organisational
members demarcated the boundaries of the collaboration by producing two types of
psychosocial spaces. The ‘spaces of regulation’ provided a stable meaning framework
where the partners found continuity, while the ‘learning spaces’ offered them
opportunities for renewal and change. These working spaces helped partners engage
with the collaborative process in a flexible way. However, they required the activation
of different types of boundaries and the establishment of different types of identities
through identification loops. In this way partners were able to make sense of the
constant changes in the collaboration space and organise their actions accordingly.
Therefore, although some of the KEDDY collaboration features were designed a priori
and provided continuity through regulatory spaces, this research illustrates how the day
to day collaboration unfolds as partners also explore new practices. This indicates that it
is not possible to predict the outcome of the collaboration process.
Notwithstanding the limitations due to the small-scale nature of this study, the results
have useful implications for the understanding of the development and transformations
of inter-organisational collaborations over time. This research contributes to the body of
research in the area in that it strengthens the view of inter-organisational collaboration
as a process and questions in which way it is currently understood in the context of
contemporary inter-organisational collaboration studies.
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