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Managing to Collaborate B325 Questions

Answer the following TWO QUESTIONS by referring to course material and examples from your professional or personal experience.

Question 1 (50 Marks) 600 words

All successful collaborations aim to achieve collaborative advantage. This, however, is not easily realised. Based on the course material, and using examples from your professional or personal life:

1. Discuss the bases for achieving collaborative advantage; (Chapter1)

Access to Resource

Organizations often collaborate if they are unable to achieve their objectives with their own resources. Collaboration with other organizations allows to bring together different resources including technology or expertise.

Shared Risk

Organizations collaborate because the consequences of failure on a project are too high for them to risk taking it on alone, They share the risk when it is the primary cause of collaboration. For example: Collaboration between cost-intensive research and development organizations like pharmaceutical research organizations.

Efficiency

Governments have often seen private organizations as being more efficient than public ones which promoted public-private partnerships (collaboration) for public service delivery. For instance, MPW offer biddings over public constructional projects which is implemented by selected private construction companies.

There are four different perspectives on efficiency:

1. Efficiency stems from the idea of economies of scale
2. Efficiency related to outsourcing activities
3. Operational efficiency: many purchasing and supply chain alliances are of this sort.
4. Coordination of services as to avoid duplication and thus ensure efficiency

Coordination and Seamlessness:

Coordination is the act of organizing, making different people or things work together for a goal to fulfill desired goals in an organization. Coordination is a managerial function in which different activities of the business are properly adjusted and interlinked. For example: Wedding service companies include small collaborated companies to provide invitations, facilities, flowers, cars clothing and so on.

coordination and seamlessness are not always inter-related

1. Repetition (duplication of an activity)
2. Omission (leaving gaps in activity)
3. Divergence (diluting activity across a range of activities)
4. Counter production (pursuing conflicting activities)are obstructing collaboration.

Learning :

Some collaborations are created to pursue joint activities where other created with the aim of Mutual learning. For example: staff from automobile industry acting as trainers and consultants to staff of their suppliers of components and parts

5. Moral Imperative:

The most important reason for being concerned in collaboration is a moral one. Issues facing society (such as crime, drug, poverty, conflict, health promotion, economic development, etc.) cannot be achieved if the organization acts alone. Collaboration is essential to alleviate any problems at the organization, industry, society and national levels.

1. Discuss the types of goals that need to be set to achieve collaboration aims(Chapter2)
2. Superordinate Goals
   • A Superordinate goal is like a “slogan” to induce/encourage people, to translate a message to people. A Superordinate goal captures the heart. It focuses mainly on affect, it appeals to emotions. A Superordinate goal is a bottom-up goal which are more powerful than Top-Down goals since they are expressed in the language of the employees.

Examples of Superordinate Goals(أمثلة) :

1. “Bank You Know and Trust” – National bank of Kuwait
2. “Just Do It” – Nike Shoe Manufacture
3. “Wonderful World” – Zain Telecom
4. Walt Disney

Goal setting(تحديد الأهداف) :

Goal setting is a cognitive variable (i.e. based on understanding, knowledge, observation, reasoning), whereas a superordinate goal aims only to affect. Goal setting is the aspect of needs and values.

تحديد الأهداف هو متغير إدراكي (أي يعتمد على الفهم والمعرفة والملاحظة والتفكير) ، في حين أن الهدف الفائق يهدف فقط إلى التأثير. تحديد الهدف هو مظهر من مظاهر الاحتياجات والقيم..

The purpose of goal setting is to make the Superordinate goal concrete, to move it from emotional to concrete action steps. To achieve that, the goal must be:

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and have a Time-frame. – SMART

Example: Walt Disney, Superordinate goal: “Learning through entertainment”, SMART goal: Putting in place the Epcot center that allows people to be more knowledgeable and wiser after passing a day at the center than they were in the morning when they came.

Importance of Goals

1. Goals are important because they provide people with a challenge, feelings of accomplishment when progress is made toward goal attainment, meaning to meaningless tasks.

اThat is why goals need to be specific, clear and well set as to allow a positive outcome and satisfaction (for instance; instead of saying to employees “do your best”, it is better to say “do what is required” and clearly specify tasks required)

2. Goals are as well important because they can reduce the stress if they are in few numbers. They allow people to see the progress that they are doing in relation to the goals.
3. Goals remove the ambiguity (opposite of clarity) as to the criteria for which you and others will hold yourself responsible and accountable.
4. In order to achieve goals, there is a need to have a commitment. Without commitment there is no goal.

2. Outline when these goals might lead to collaborative inertia and identify which might lead to harmful outcomes. (Chapter 3)

2. When Goals Are Too Specific

Goals focus attention. However, goals can focus attention so narrowly that people overlook other important features of a task

Three Situations of Goals Going Wild

• Narrow goals

people narrow their focus on the specific task required and hence outcome expected. Such intense focus will “blind” people from other important issues that appear to them unrelated to the goal.

Tendency to focus too narrowly on goals is compounded when managers plan the wrong course by setting the wrong goal (e.g. setting revenue instead of profit goals). Consequently, setting the correct/appropriate goal is a difficult process. Goal setting may cause people to ignore important dimensions of performance that are not specified by the goal-setting system. The presence of goals might lead employees to focus on short-term gains and lose sight of potential devastating long-term effects on the organization.

• Too Many Goals:

When multiple goals are pursued at one time, this might cause a problem for employees. Employees tend in that case to focus only on one goal. Some types of goals are more likely to be ignored than others.

• Inappropriate Time Horizon:

Even if goals are set correctly, time horizon to achieve them may be inappropriate. Goals that confirm immediate performance (e.g. this quarter’s profits) prompt managers to engage in short term behavior that harms the organization in the long run.

2. When Goals Are Too Challenging:

Three situations of Challenging Goals:

• Risk Taking:

People motivated by specific, challenging goals adopt riskier strategies than those with less challenging goals or unclear goals.  Goals harm negotiation performance by increasing risky behavior. Negotiators with goals are more likely to fail to reach a profitable agreement than are negotiators who lack goals. The excessive focus on goals might hence lead to risk-taking behavior (cause of many real-world disasters)

• Unethical behavior :

Goal setting is seen as a powerful motivation tool yet, it can lead and promote unethical behavior. Goal setting can promote two different types of cheating behavior (unethical behavior):

1. When motivated by a goal, people may choose to use unethical methods to reach it. Example: at sears, and in order to reach the specific, challenging goal set by the administration, employees charged customers for unnecessary repairs.
2. Goal setting can motivate people to report that they have met the goal when in fact they fell short. Example: employees from a certain organization who were driven to reach sales target reported sales that never took place.

Goal setting is not the only cause of employee unethical behavior. It is an important ingredient for other aspects interfere as well: (Lax oversight, Financial incentives for meeting performance targets, Organizational culture with a weak commitment to ethics).

An ethical organizational culture can restrain in the harmful effects of goal setting. Given that small decisions within an organization can have broad implications for organizational culture, the aggressive goal setting within an organization increases the likelihood of creating an organizational climate ripe for unethical behavior.

• Dissatisfaction and the Psychological Consequences of Goal Failure:

When problem embedded in goals, there is the possibility that the goal may not be reached, which will lead to dissatisfaction. Decrease in satisfaction will influence how people view themselves and have important consequences for future behavior..

Consequently, understanding of self-efficacy are a key predictor of task engagement, commitment and effort. In other words, one needs to believe in his/her personal ability and overall intelligence as to be able to reach the goal.