Chapter 6

Managing Aims
 Introduction
• Genuine collaborative aims exist in an entanglement of other
aims, both real and imagined.
• The interplay between these aims is a major factor leading to
difficulty of achieving sustained agreement about
collaborative purpose.
• Understanding the nature of these aims in any particular
situation is thus crucial to understanding how to manage
them.

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 Dimensions of Aims in Collaboration
Dimension Elements
Ownership (internal) Collaboration aims Organization aims Individual aims
Ownership (external) External Non-member
collaboration aims individual aims
Genuineness Genuine aims Pseudo-aims
Routes to Aims achieved Aims achieved
achievement through the through an
collaboration individual
organization or
another
collaboration
Focus Collaborative Substantive purpose
process aims aims
Explicitness Explicit aims Unstated aims Hidden aims

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 Dimension 1: Ownership (internal)
• Collaborations are enacted by individuals. These individuals are
linked to the various organizations that form the collaboration.
• Collaboration aims, organization aims and individual aims relate
directly to the aspirations of the members of a collaboration.

a) Collaboration aims:
• They are statements about what the collaborating organizations are
aspiring to achieve together.
• They may be viewed as the public statement of the joint purpose of the
collaborating partners.
• They relate to the inter-organizational domain and are beyond the
achievement of individuals or organizations acting alone.
• They related the focus to the joint activity
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 Dimension 1: Ownership (internal)
b) Organization aims:
• They are statements relating to the aspirations of each of the
organizations involved.
• They are statements of what organizations seek to achieve for
themselves and tend to be closely aligned with their functions,
responsibilities and spheres of activity.
• They related the focus to what an organization hopes to gain for itself
from participating

c) Individual aims:
• They are statements relating to the aspirations of the individuals
involved
• They may relate to career progression or personal causes.
• Individuals are likely to be mandated to a role in the collaboration by
superiors. It is relatively rare for individuals to participate in
collaboration solely for self-interest reasons.
• Unlike organization aims, individual aims do not account for – or relate
to – an individual’s involvement in the collaboration.

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 Dimension 2: Ownership (external)
• We have two types: external collaboration aims and non-member individual aims. They
relate hence to parties outside the collaboration.

a) External collaboration aims:

• They exist where the force for collaboration is from external pressures rather than from any of the
members.
• They relate mostly to government policy drives as well as from other external stakeholders such as
pressure groups or customers
• Members of the collaboration may be invited to subscribe to these aims but in many situations
they are also imposed upon the collaborating partners.

b) Non-member individual aims:

• They exist where individual has a strong stake or other interest in a
collaboration even though they are not formally a part of it.
• Unlike external collaboration aims, those who own non-member aims
usually do not have enough power to impose them upon collaboration.
• A common source of non-member individual aims is partnership or
alliance managers whose job is to support the members.
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 Dimension 3: Genuineness
a) Genuine aims:
• Many of the aims expressed by participants in collaboration either in conversation
or in formal documents are genuine statements about what they aspire to achieve.

b) Pseudo-aims:
• In some situations, collaboration aims are fabricated to meet the specification of
the funding provider. Such collaboration aims may exist purely to legitimize the
existence of the collaboration as opposed to being a genuine representation of the
partners’ collaborative intent. These aims are called “pseudo –aims”.
• If collaborative aim is purely symbolic in nature, the commitment to achieving it is
likely to be low.
• Pseudo collaboration aims thus generally derive as a reaction to external
collaboration aims and the interplay between these and any genuine aims that the
members have for the collaboration drives the joint activities that they pursue.
• Pseudo-aims can be as well at organization and individual aim level.

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 Dimension 4: Routes to Achievement
• We can distinguish between: (1) aims that are to be achieved via
collaboration, and (2) those that an individual, an organization or
even another collaboration can pursue separately.
• When discussing organization and individual aims, we noted that a
subset of these would be related to the interests of the collaboration
• In practice, participants are likely to try to pursue only a subset of that
subset through the collaboration.
• Others remain to be addressed through the organization alone or even
in an individual’s private capacity.
• Disentangling aims that do relate to a particular collaboration from
those that do not has become hence problematic.
• It is common for individual members to combine agendas across the
various organizational and inter-organizational initiatives that they are
involved in when they see connections between the various agendas.
Others who are not involved, do not see these related agendas

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 Dimension 5: Focus
• In collaboration, aims can relate to (1) collaborative process, as well as to (2) substantive
purpose

a) Collaborative process:
• They express the aims that relate to the how of collaborating

b) Substantive purpose:
• They refer essentially to the aims that express the what of collaborating.

• Process aims:
• They are commonly seen as a mean of achieving substantive ends
• They are usually perceived as subordinate to the substantive collaboration aims.
• Process aims that are subordinate to the substantive aims often fall in the external collaboration
aims category (for example: government policies)
• Process aims are not always positive in their intent regarding collaboration. Those who have
been “forced” into the collaboration by such policies may seek either to minimize the
collaborative processes to a level that will satisfice, or even bypass them.

• Invisible products:
• In some situations the process of working together is seen by some parties as essential to the
collaborative advantage. The aim is hence not known and communicated to all parties. It is not
explicitly stated and instead a substantive (pseudo-) aim is created. This kind of collaboration is
referred to by invisible products

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 Dimension 6: Explicitness
• We distinguish three elements in this category: explicit aims,
unstated aims and hidden aims.
• In practice, there are many reasons why both collaborative process
aims and substantive purpose aims many knowingly not be revealed
to other participants.
• It is even possible that organization aims in respect of the
collaboration may be hidden from individuals in the same
organization.
• Hidden agendas are thus common in collaboration.
• Deliberate concealing of aims is not the only reason why aims are
not clearly stated. Other reason exist:
• Complex hierarchy of sub-aims stemming from both individual and
organizational members
• Limited opportunities for exploring and explicating aims.
• The possibility for representatives to mistakenly take for granted that
others understand their aims and to make assumptions about others
aims
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 Dimension 6: Explicitness
• Even when aims are explicitly stated, the likelihood
that individuals will attach to them the same meaning
is too low.
• Formal contracts are one way in which partners
sometime seek to explicate and tie down
collaborative aims. Yet, managers often comment that
the challenge lies in managing all the aspects of a
collaboration that are not covered by the contract.

• For aims that are not explicitly stated, we can

distinguish between:
• Those that are intentionally unstated and,
• Those that are unwittingly or not deliberately unstated.
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 Boundaries Between Categories
• The boundaries between categories are often blurred
for all the dimensions.

• Dimensions 1 and 2: Ownership

• The distinction between collaboration aims and organization aims is
minor.
• The distinction between individual aims and organizational aims can be
as well not very clear. Example: if a chief executive forms a personal
agenda around an alliance, this may de facto become an organizational
aim.
• The distinction as well between internal and external aims is often not a
clear-cut, either because membership is not formalized or because the
boundaries of what constitutes the collaboration are defined differently
by different members.

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 Boundaries Between Categories
• Dimension 3: Genuineness
• In most cases, participants feel obliged to take on board some aspects
of imposed aims, so pseudo-aims often become genuine.

• Dimension 4: Routes to achievement

• What can and cannot be achieved through collaboration is rarely clear-
cut

• Dimension 5: Focus
• Aims expressed in terms of collaborative process often have an
underlying substantive rationale even though this may not be spelled
out or even fully understood.

• Dimension 6: Explicitness
• Aims might be hidden to some and nor others
• Aims may have been explicitly stated by not written
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 Combinations of Categories
• Please refer to pp. 94 – Figure 6.1 (A summary of the
aims categories).
• Categorization of the dimensions:
• The Ownership and Genuineness dimensions are represented in the vertical
axis
• Explicitness is represented on the horizontal axis
• Focus elements are represented as options within the cell of the matrix.
• As for Routes of Achievement, they are indicated in the bottom segment

1) Such categorization suggests that any aim can be seen as a

combination of elements across the dimensions
• Some combinations of elements are, by definition, not
possible :
• The dimensions of Ownership (internal) and Ownership (external)
• Collaboration aims cannot be hidden because they relate to labels attached
to joint endeavor
• Pseudo-aims cannot be unstated or hidden or owned by an external player
• External aims need to be expressed explicitly in order for member to
subscribe to them. LY 14
 Combinations of Categories

2) In principle , each member of the organization has a

set of organization aims and any person from the
member organizations who sees the collaboration as
relevant to their organizational role has a set of
individual aims

3) Such categorization of aims is seen from a unitary

perspective on the collaboration.
The content of the cells would look different from the
perspective of different parties involved. They would
each have a particular understanding (or lack of
understanding) of their own and others’ aims (check
figure 6.2 – pp. 96). LY 15
 Changing Nature of Aims
• Aims change over time. They come and go, they change and develop.
• Individuals in the member organizations come and go, or change their role
with the organization, and the collection of individual aims relating to the
collaboration alters alongside this.
• Organizations subject to mergers or de-mergers, new alliances, closure or
restructuring come and go and the collection of organization aims alters
accordingly.
• Any resulting configuration of the membership often affects the formal
collaboration aims as well.
• Organizations may change their policies as a result of structural changes or
for other environmental reasons which will have an effect on both the
organization and collaboration aims.

• Even in situations where the parties and their broad aims remain relatively stable
over long period of time, aims relating to collaboration may change as short-
term outcomes lead to new ways of doing things (such as productive new
collaboration or organization aims)

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 Summarizing
• The conceptualization of aims can be summarized as follow:
• Collaborations are enacted by individuals but they usually represent organizations and
often talk about these as though they could enact aims
• Aims in collaboration can be distinguished in principle at collaboration, organization and
individual level and stem from parties both internal and external to the collaboration. The
distinction between the levels can be in practice fuzzy
• Aims can relate to both substantive purpose and collaborative process and the distinction
between the two may be fuzzy
• Aims may be genuine or pseudo, and while they are sometimes explicitly stated, they
often remain unintentionally unstated or deliberately hidden from others. These
distinctions may also be fuzzy in practice
• Some combinations of the above are definitionally impossible.
• Individuals often raise issues in respect of aims that relate closely to the collaboration’s
business but are not a part of it
• Every organization and individual with an interest in a collaboration brings with them a set
of aims.
• Every organization and individual with an interest in it has a particular perception of their
own and others’ aims. There are also perceptions of perceptions, etc.
• Aims at all levels change regularly and in many cases, very frequently
• In any collaboration a very large number of aims are like to be interacting.
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 Relevance and Value
Practical Significance of the Framework
• Aspect Practical Relevance
Ownership (internal) Understanding motivations and constraints and resolving
confusion
Ownership (external) Managing external stakeholders
Genuineness Clarifying what you really want to achieve and what you
need to achieve in order to satisfy others
Routes to achievement Asking “Does this aim really have anything to do with this
collaboration? … or should it have?”
Focus Considering how process and substantive aims interrelate
and whether the balance is right; establishing whether any
party has negative process aims
Explicitness Uncovering the taken for granted and that which cannot be
in the public arena
Multiple perceptions Exploring how others may view things and explaining their
actions
Changes over time Monitoring how aims have changed in the past; weighing
up how they may
LY
change in the future 18
 From Categorization to a Framework for
Managing Aims
• The framework can be used as a tool to help in managing aims at a
number of different levels.

• At the most basic practical level, it can work as an awareness raiser in

respect of issues that relate to managing aims.
• At that level, the most important message is that are multiple aims in
collaborations and that actively managing them makes a difference to the
likelihood of reaching desirable outcomes from whoever’s perspective
matters. The following question should be asked: “Are they coming from the
same place as me?”.

• The framework can as well work as a role thinking.

• Role thinking means putting yourself in the shoes of others and thinking
through the world as they might see it.

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From Categorization to a Framework for
Managing Aims
• However, considering the framework use in practice, three
observations seem pertinent:
• First, you cannot know what the full set of aims is.
• You cannot know what others’ hidden aims are.
• You will not be able to compile with certainty a complete list of stakeholders or to
establish the nature of all of the unstated aims.
• Second, even if you could know them, you would never have time to
complete the task
• Third, the combinations of dimensions is too much unmanageable to be
useful in practice.

• Consequently, to be able to manage the framework, the following

needs to be adapted:
• Take the internal and external Ownership dimensions as primary and then
use other dimensions as triggers to help clarify these (see fig. 6.4 on pp. 104
+ discussion from pp. 103-106)
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