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Value Creation in Inter-Organizational Collaboration: An Empirical Study

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Abstract

Over the last decade, businesses, policymakers, and researchers alike have advocated the need for (and potential of) value creation through inter-organizational collaboration. Researchers have widely argued that organizations that are engaged in collaborative processes create value. Because researchers have tended to focus on the identification of organizational motivations and on key success factors for collaboration, however, both the nature and processes of value creation in inter-organizational collaboration have yet to be examined. A recent theory by Austin and Seitanidi (Nonprofit Volunt Sect Q 41(5):726–758, 2012a; Nonprofit Volunt Sect Q 41(6):929–968, 2012b) has proposed an analytical framework for analyzing value creation in inter-organizational collaboration, based on four types of value. The purpose of this current study is to empirically test this framework, and to provide key pointers for analyzing the nature of value, particularly in relation to learning. Our detailed empirical research is based on a 6-year retrospective case study of an inter-organizational partnership within an international development project for local economic development in Guatemala. The study’s contributions are twofold. First, it provides evidence of the critical path of the creation of diverse types of values in a collaborative process; second, it links the different types of value creation with the types of learning that occur in an inter-organizational process.

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Notes

  1. SOCODEVI/CECI, Rural Economic Development Project in the District of Sololá (PROSOL), Implementation Plan, June 2009.

  2. UNDP document: Human Development Report: The rise of the South: Human progress in a diverse world, 2013.

  3. World Bank document: Guatemala—Poverty assessment: Good performance at low levels, March 2009.

  4. http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/guatemala/overview#1.

  5. UNICEF working paper: Global inequality: Beyond the bottom billion—A rapid review of income distribution in 141 Countries, August 2012.

  6. Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) Report, Memory of Silence, February 1999.

  7. Historical Clarification Commission (CEH) Report, Memory of Silence, February 1999.

  8. Red de Seguridad y Defensa de América Latina (RESDAL), Public Security Index, Central America: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama, Buenos Aires, October 2013.

  9. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), National Human Development Report 2011–2012: Guatemala, a country of opportunities for youth?, July 2012.

  10. UNDP. (2015). UNPD warns that poverty, exclusion, violence are destroying Guatemalan youth. Retrieved March 23, 2015 from http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/articles/2012/07/24/guatemala-la-pobreza-la-exclusion-y-la-violencia-abaten-a-la-juventud.html.

  11. SOCODEVI/CECI, Rural Economic Development Project in Sololá’s District (PROSOL), Implementation Plan, June 2009.

  12. All the quotes are translated from Spanish and have been slightly edited for clarity in English.

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  1. Department of Management, HEC Montréal, 3000 chemin de la Côte Sainte Catherine, Montreal, QC, H3T 3A7, Canada

    Morgane Le Pennec & Emmanuel Raufflet

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  1. Morgane Le Pennec
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  2. Emmanuel Raufflet
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Correspondence to Emmanuel Raufflet.

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Le Pennec, M., Raufflet, E. Value Creation in Inter-Organizational Collaboration: An Empirical Study. J Bus Ethics 148, 817–834 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-3012-7

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