Collaboration, Coordination, and Cooperation Among Organizations: Establishing the Distinctive Meanings of These Terms Through a Systematic Literature Review

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_466507CF1117
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Publication sub-type
Review (review): journal as complete as possible of one specific subject, written based on exhaustive analyses from published work.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Collaboration, Coordination, and Cooperation Among Organizations: Establishing the Distinctive Meanings of These Terms Through a Systematic Literature Review
Journal
Journal of Management
Author(s)
Castañer Xavier, Oliveira Nuno
ISSN
0149-2063
1557-1211
Publication state
Published
Issued date
07/2020
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
46
Number
6
Pages
965-1001
Language
english
Abstract
Collaboration, coordination and cooperation lie at the core of interorganizational activities. To address the confusion regarding the definitions of these three terms, recent works have proposed redefinitions. Although these proposals address an important concern, we believe that they might be premature because (a) they do not build on a systematic examination of how these terms have been used in the literature and (b) they seem to narrow the focus to a given theory and alliances only that might unduly restrict the meaning of the terms defined. In this paper, we review the definitions of the three terms as they appear in nine top journals in the general management literature (1948-2017). By studying the definitions, we identify three interactional dimensions that are present to different extents in collaboration, coordination and cooperation: attitude, behavior and outcome. Our systematic review confirms the confusion and lack of parsimony in the extant definitions. The overlap in the content of these dimensions across the three terms does not provide a basis for distinctively defining collaboration, coordination and cooperation. Thus, we further draw on our review to identify two discriminating dimensions that allow us to distinguish these three terms: the temporal stage and the type of goal. Our review contributes to theoretical development by offering a conceptual redefinition of the three terms that renders them distinct and thus facilitates knowledge accumulation and theory development. Moreover, the set of interactional and discriminating dimensions generates a host of managerially relevant research questions about a wide range of interorganizational relationships.
Keywords
Strategy and Management, Finance, cooperative strategy, collaboration, cooperation, coordination, coopetition, competition, interorganizational relations, alliances, joint ventures, networks, buyer-supplier relations, consortia, partnerships, discriminant validity, parsimony.
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
20/01/2022 12:34
Last modification date
07/09/2023 6:58
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