Institutions involved in the participating phase of collaborative activity were demonstrating that their expectations had been met; they were demonstrating a deeper level of involvement, termed in this thesis as ‘participating’.
Participating is used here in a similar sense to the way the term is used in the community of practice literature (Lave and Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998). That is, becoming a full participant is a process (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p. 29), it takes time and is gradual. Those continuing to take part were
tentatively engaged; a final commitment had yet to be made.
This phase equates to Object of production D, the development of a trading cooperative. In this phase Cluster Steering Committee members had been through the stage of determining the degree of mutuality of the collaborative object of production and that of the object of activity of their own institution and confirmed there is mutual interest. By this time the group was much smaller, but more stable. There was increasing clarity about roles, and principles important to the Cluster Steering Committee were confirmed and embedded in the developing structures.
Only firms were involved in this phase, many of them members of TasIT. As previously discussed, other institutions had left in the interacting phase. Those remaining perceived the Cluster as leading to another avenue of interesting work that is part of much larger projects resulting in increased profits. In this phase each participating subject is:
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• Moving beyond perceiving mutuality in the evolving object of production to aligning the object of activity of their organisation with that of the Cluster
• Determining structures and rules of the evolving Cluster
• Aligning the values of their organisation with those of the Cluster
The decision to form a trading cooperative was influenced by a combination of ‘circumstances’ and contextual conditions. These included government policy, the small size of firms in the industry and state government practices resulting in larger tenders going to medium-to-large non-Tasmanian firms. This context influenced the goals and commitment of TasIT to form goals of competing effectively, and keeping work within the State. These TasIT goals found reflected meaning (Engeström et al., 1995) in the evolving Cluster’s consumption of the Cooperative Act (as a tool). This meaning was an expression of principles evident from the Steering Committee’s inception. Developing a trading cooperative as opposed to an association or company structure is a powerful expression of the principles of democracy, cooperation and shared decision making. These are shown in the following objective from the draft business proposal put up at the first formal meeting of the Steering Committee:
To establish a management structure that engenders trust, facilitates
cooperative endeavour and provides management and marketing expertise to the stakeholders (Friend, 2002).
These values were confirmed and embedded in this phase. Similar ways of working are also expressions of shared principles, values and beliefs, a finding of meaning in each other, as discussed in Chapter Two:
[We] trust each other... I’ve got to be able to go to someone in the cluster and say to someone I need this produce and I need it in three weeks. You said you could do it three months ago. They might say I can’t do it in the next fortnight but I’ll have this much in this amount of time, I may not make it in that time. All of this gets it out there, if there’s a problem we want to know about it now, not tomorrow. I think that way of working suits me, suits the way I think and I think it suits most of the members of the Cluster (2004 interview)
Those remaining in this phase trusted each other and had similar ways of working with similar practices.
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Values of cooperative endeavour were also evident in a sense of social good in developing the industry:
I think anything that generates more work would be good for the industry. Essentially it also means if its good work, interesting work it also means diversifying skills and that builds the industry. When I go looking for a programmer I’ve got more chance of finding a programmer in the industry that’s going places than I have in an industry that is moribund (2004 interview).
The sense of social good in developing the industry was evident at the
inception of the collaborative process and was expressed in the mission tabled at the inaugural meeting, using language such as ‘providing pathways for information technology businesses, government and scientific organisations to collaborate in new ways’ (Friend, 2002, p. 2). These principles and ideals were embedded within the object of production of developing a structure for the Cluster:
The members see that what we’ve created is valuable in the actual structure. There was a majority perception coming across that we’re talking strategic not jobs focus. Members were seeing that this is a strategic opportunity that we need to form a body, get ourselves organised, get out there in the market and make noise and get people interested (2004 interview).
This respondent expresses a synergy of meaning-making between those subjects who made the final step to committing and becoming members of the Marine ICT Cluster. There is, at this phase an agreement that the Cluster is a longer-term strategic device for accessing large projects not previously available to participating firms.
The six firms that made the decision to be members of the Marine ICT Cluster trading cooperative were committed and engaged. This is the commitment phase of collaboration. The object of production had been transformed, moving the Cluster in a new direction.
8.3
CONCLUSION
The phases of institutional collaborative activity evolve as the object of production evolves. In the process different tools are used and a contested social world begins to develop. As expectations differ, responses are
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interpreted in multiple ways, differences and tensions inherent in the institutional collaborative activity begin to surface. In this case study the institutional collaboration concluded with the establishment of a stable, ongoing structure, the Cluster as a trading cooperative. However, in many instances of institutional collaboration, such structures may not be the outcome, as for example in the collaboration between institutions in the Industrial Commission over the award conditions discussed in Chapter Five. The object of production is influenced by contextual conditions as are the tools available to the collaborative activity and the ways in which they are used.
To take part in the connecting phase participants must be immersed in the type of work the collaborative activity is focusing on. This requires actively being part of relevant networks and organisations. Initiators of the
collaborative activity establish expectations around an evolving object of production and respondents then make an approximation of the fit between their institutional object of activity and their cognition of the collaborative object of production as it is at that point in time. If they see a reflection of one object in the other, they move into the collaborative activity.
The collaborative activity is properly established in the interacting phase where participants come together and begin to work towards more specific understandings, making approximations of key terms and in the process determine if there is mutual interest between the object of production of the collaborative activity and that of their own institution. Approximations continued to be made, testing the extent and depth of perceived mutual interest. For some subjects this resulted in a focus on the differences.
Institutional subjects must learn how to make sense of these multiple meanings and institutional arrangements in order to be regarded as
accountable. Meeting expectations is a matter of situated knowing of how to continue in the specific social practices, thus we act ‘into’ the social
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circumstances into which we must fit our action (Shotter, 1993). Roles and the type of contribution are also determined by each institution’s rules and object of activity. Thus responsibility for the trajectory of the object of production is distributed across the group, depending on the tools used at any one point in time. Different institutions have more or less competence with different tools, and more or less power and influence are exercised with and are part of a tool.
Those participants who move to the next phase of collaborative activity – participating – have established an alignment between the evolving object of production of the collaborative activity and their own institution. Mutual principles and ideals are confirmed and become part of the developing social world and its structures. In this way shared or mutually held principles and ideals are practiced, through a tentative engagement, which is a testing of whether or not there will be commitment.
Commitment is the phase where those taking part have pledged to take part in the structures of the collaborative activity. The object of production has been transformed, leading to a different trajectory. The structures and roles are by now stable. That is, these institutional subjects have engaged in the
collaborative activity.
The next chapter explores learning in collaborative activity not just as a process, but analyses the ways in which contextual conditions mediate learning in collaborative activity.
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