The Lived Experience of Collaboration: a Collective Narrative of Partnership Working in the Voluntary Sector

The Lived Experience of Collaboration: A Collective Narrative of Partnership Working in the Voluntary Sector

The philosophical and methodological rudiments of its study

Brian P Ross

Centre for Knowledge, Innovation, Technology, and Enterprise (KITE),

Newcastle University Business School,

1st Floor Citywall

Citygate

St James Boulevard

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE1 4JH

F: +44 (0)191 243 0814

E: brian.ross@ncl.ac.uk

Supervisors:

Professor Stephen Procter

s.j.procter@ncl.ac.uk

Mr. Rob Wilson

rob.wilson@ncl.ac.uk

18th EDAMBA Summer Academy

Soreze, France

July 2009

Abstract

Partnership working has been examined extensively across several disciplines, contexts and landscapes. Ideally, when organisations develop relationships with other organisations they will aim to collaborate and acquire some form of advantage from their association. Employing a qualitative methodological inquiry this investigation sets out to explore the journey of a Voluntary Sector partnership in the United Kingdom (UK). A phenomenological approach was carried out to establish how individuals experience collaboration. In-depth interviews were systematically triangulated with data from a focus group and non-participant observations. The aim of this is to capture a cohesive interpretation of its meaning. A collective narrative evolved.

Keywords: collaboration, interpretive, narrative, phenomenology, qualitative methodology

Background

Partnership working is a very popular managerial topic in theory and policy. It has been addressed by many disciplines in various landscapes and sectors. Being synonymous (Tait and Shah, 2007) and broadly conceptualised with other terms, which are frequently used interchangeably, it makes it rather difficult to define. Broadly speaking, it is an arrangement with two or more organisations. It is argued that something has to be achieved that could not have been attained by any of the organisations acting alone (Huxham and Vangen, 2005)...