Communication and power in collaborative organizing

Kasey L Walker, Purdue University

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the communicative processes and power relationships in collaborative organizing. Given that interorganizational collaboration is characterized by a lack of formal hierarchy and temporary, highly interdependent and embedded relationships, the processes of communication and power must be reconceptualized and examined using new methodologies. In this study, I combined social scientific methods and critical perspectives to examine two quasi-experimental collaborations. Through the use of descriptive and recently developed inferential (i.e., SIENA) social network analytic techniques this study found that: (a) collaboration is emergent, highly interdependent, and embedded within multiple contexts; (b) collaborative participants must constantly (re)negotiate the collaborative goals and processes; and (c) collaborative networks are fluid, moderately dense, decentralized and emerge as the result of specific endogenous and exogenous effects. This study makes several empirical, theoretical, and methodological contributions. There are three main bodies of literature advanced by this study: collaboration, power, and social network analysis. This study is the first and only longitudinal, empirical investigation of the communication, resource, and semantic relationships among collaboration participants. As such, the findings provide insight into the collaborative process and confirmation of the assumed unique characteristics of collaboration (i.e., an organizing process characterized by highly interdependent, decentralized, and fluid relationships). Second, this study utilizes social scientific methods to examine a power structure as defined by critical-interpretive theory. While the two may be viewed as incommensurable because social scientific methods have a tendency to reify what critical-interpretive theory seeks to critique and change, this study demonstrates that quantitative methodologies can be used for critical theoretic ends. Thus, this research moves beyond triangulation (i.e., using multiple methods to assess power) to propose new ways of conceptualizing and assessing power relationships. And finally, the analyses examine networks across time and move away from network description to inferential models that predict network dynamics rather than simply describing their structure.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Stohl, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Communication

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