Melanie Schreiner

INTEGRATING PERSPECTIVES: A MULTIDIMENSIONAL CONSTRUCT OF COLLABORATIVE CAPABILITY

With the advent of the resource-based and dynamic capabilities views of the firm, researchers of collaborative relationships have raised the question as to whether superior management of such relationships does indeed explain observed differences in collaborative performance of individual firms. While most research to-date has concentrated on antecedents and development of such management capabilities, in this chapter we propose a comprehensive construct aimed at capturing what constitutes collaborative capability. Results of an exploratory field study of vertical relationships in the software service sector suggest that collaborative capability consists of structural, cognitive, and affective dimensions. Based on our findings, we believe that the three dimensions of collaborative capability act as complements rather than substitutes, and that superior collaborative performance depends on a proper balance of the three dimensions.

What Makes Inter-organizational Collaboration in UN Peacebuilding Work? Results from an Organizational Analysis of the UN Community in Liberia

Abstract This article addresses inter-organizational collaboration (IOC) among United Nations organizations in post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding. Taking an organization theory perspective on the subject, the article investigates which factors drive or impede the ability of the different branches of a United Nations peacebuilding system to ‘work together as one’ and to deliver results to its beneficiaries in a more coordinated and coherent fashion. Building on evidence from extensive field research in Liberia, the article develops a typology of IOC factors, and identifies nine particularly important key factors for effective IOC. With this, the study makes available an informative basis for the allocation and prioritization of managerial attention and resources in present and future peacebuilding endeavours.

Relational quality, alliance capability, and alliance performance: an integrated framework

Building on the complementarity nature of extant dyadic and portfolio level alliance research, this paper discusses the role of alliance capability and relational quality as antecedents of alliance performance. Although prior research focused extensively on the influence of dyadic issues on alliance performance, more recent studies focus on firm-level capabilities to manage sets of alliances. We specify an integrated framework that merges these two previously separated streams of research and discuss how firm-level alliance capabilities affect dyadic level relational quality. The framework suggests that relational quality mediates between both alliance capability and alliance performance and provides a detailed discussion on how firm-level mechanisms improve the quality of dyadic relationships. We also discuss implications and options for future research.