Collaboration has emerged as an important construct for examining goal directed behaviour in groups (Bedwell et al., 2012; Ødegård & Bjørkly, 2012; Thomson, Perry, & Miller, 2007; Trickett & Espino, 2004). However, there appears to be little consensus in the literature about what is meant by collaboration. For example, Taylor, Hallam, Charlton, and Wall (2014, p. 33) asserted that “productivity is the most important attribute of collaboration” and that “collaborative teams [in schools] … are a management strategy designed to improve instruction” (p.47). Pluta, Richards, and Mutnick (2013) identified collaboration as a team based competency. Shelbourn, Bouchlaghem, Anumba, and Carrillo (2007, p. 363) argued that six areas need to be addressed for collaboration to occur: vision, engagement, trust, communication,
processes and technology. Bedwell et al. (2012, p. 129) noted that “depending upon the specialization of the authors, the same term could refer to different forms of
interactions, providing little, if any, construct clarity”. A review of the literature concerning collaboration revealed a synthesis of disciplines including social
psychology, cognitive science, management, communications, education, sociology and anthropology (Bedwell et al., 2012). Each of these disciplines provide insights and useful perspectives from which to examine collaboration and teamwork.
Senge (2006) identified shared vision building and team learning as two of five disciplines required for creating a ‘learning organisation’. In the popular management literature of Steven Covey (1990), many of the habits identified as common to highly effective people relate to creating and maintaining teams and ‘synergizing’ to achieve goals with teams. Studies of collaboration have been conducted in diverse fields such as tourism operations (Lee & Ramayah, 2011), the military forces (Strang et al., 2011;
White, Lyons, & Swindler, 2007), music performance (Sawyer, 2006), commercial supply chains (Ramanathan, 2014), science (Shrum, Chompalov, & Genuth, 2001), in nursing (Banerjee, 2011), and in the mining sector (McDonald & Young, 2012). Across the literature related to collaboration, the term is variously applied to cooperation between organisations (inter-organisation collaboration) and to cooperation among entities and individuals within an organisation.
Schrage (1990) stated that “collaboration is the process of shared creation: two or more individuals with complementary skills interacting to create a shared
understanding that none had previously possessed or could have come to on their own. Collaboration creates a shared meaning about a process, a product, or an event” (p. 40). Although this definition is useful in a descriptive sense, it does not easily lend itself to empirical measurement of ‘complementary skills’ or ‘shared meaning’. Schrage’s (1990) definition does resonate with SCT in so far as it acknowledges the reciprocal relationship between individuals and their environments, including other individuals with whom they work. This definition does point to the important idea of the co-
construction of knowledge located in a particular context. Schrage’s concept of ‘shared meaning’ cannot come into being without it being situated in process, product or event, as this is the environmental context in which the shared mental model is situated.
The concept of a shared mental model as a component of collaboration is explored in social/cultural cognition (Tomasello & Herrmann, 2010). According to Tomasello and Herrmann (2010), cultural cognition is the set of human cognitive skills that allow for the emergence of shared intentionality, collaborative engagement and the creation of complex symbolic systems for the representation and communication of mental states. Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, and Moll (2005) suggested that
‘shared intentionality’ is a defining characteristic of the human species and that it distinguishes humans from other life forms. The authors explained this notion of shared intentionality in terms of creating and using a common cultural discourse and the ability to communicate mental states, intentions and desired outcomes, and interpret such messages from others. This forms the basis of cultural cognition. Tomasello et al. (2005) applied Bandura’s SCT to cultural cognition, such that there is a reciprocal triadic relationship between individuals and their goals, another person or people and their goals, and the behaviours required to achieve the goals that are shared. By examining the behaviours of infants, as they learnt collaborative and cooperative behaviours, Tomasello et al. (2005) proposed a model of collaboration which was built on twin foundations of SCT and cultural cognition, thus demonstrating the contribution SCT can make to describing human motivation in team settings.
A collaborative team, therefore, is a collective made up of members who coordinate their resources and efforts to achieve a shared goal. The cognitive processes which contribute to the success or otherwise of an individual’s participation in
collaborative work can be framed in terms of SCT (Bandura, 1997). People who work in a successful collaborative team exercise collective agency in the sense that, as a
collective, they share and enact their efficacy beliefs about the team’s capability to achieve its ends. Collaboration may also be seen in terms of proxy efficacy, in that individuals may believe that the collaborative effort of the collective will assist them to achieve their individual goals. Looking more closely at the components of these
cognitive processes, Atkinson (1999) identified personal experience, free will, self- reflection, and self-perception as contributing significantly to the nature and success of collaboration. The first of these, personal experience, aligns with the notion of mastery
experience, in that it contributes to self-efficacy beliefs (Bandura, 1997). Atkinson (1999) posited that successful collaboration could be hampered by a lack of stakeholder experience. She explained the role played by volition or free will. In terms of SCT this can be understood as individuals being motivated to engage in collaborative activity and exercising their personal agency to do so. This aspect, according to Atkinson (1999), can be hamstrung by a range of socio-psychological impediments such as cultural or political differences, lack of a common vision or interpersonal distrust. Self-reflection is the third concept impacting on collaboration in Atkinson’s (1999) work. Earlier in this review, attention to cognition was identified as being necessary for the development of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986). Although self-reflection and attention are different cognitive processes, both authors have pointed to the role played by metacognition in motivation and behaviour. The attention that people pay to their experience in a collective and the way they reflect on their experience in a collective will impact upon their motivation and self-efficacy. Drawing on self-efficacy theory, Atkinson wrote “the extent of exerted effort or will [in collaboration] is contingent upon a person's beliefs in given tasks” (1999, p. 176) meaning that the cognition about a task will be related to the effort invested in the collaboration for the task.
Richards, Elliott, Woloshyn, and Mitchell (2001) found that negotiation was a key element of the process of collaboration, arguing that the work of goal-directed teams was shaped by negotiation about the tasks and roles to be fulfilled. “Collaboration requires that partners negotiate project goals, methodologies, tasks, conclusions, and dissemination of results” (Richards et al., 2001, p. 7). An uncritical approach to negotiation will potentially jeopardise the outcomes and performance of the team.
The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY) defined collaboration as “a means of producing something joined and new, from the interactions of people or organisations, their knowledge and resources” (Keast & Mandell, 2013, p. 1). In acknowledging the complexity of collaboration in real world settings, ARACY offered a framework for developing collaboration in goal directed collectives. The first required element is trust, as a “lubricant to collective action” (Keast & Mandell, 2013, p. 1), as it reduces the impediments to cooperation and increases the likelihood of sharing of information and of sharing risks in order to achieve goals. The second element is reciprocity in which collaborators “expect an equal return on their
contribution” (Keast & Mandell, 2013, p. 2). In the early stages of collaboration, such reciprocity may be transactional. As trust develops, reciprocity is less likely to be seen as a transaction of services, and more in terms of a shared commitment to the success of the collaboration. The third element of collaboration according to ARACY is mutuality, whereby members of a collaborative collective agree to have their individual interests subsumed into the collective interest. This third element is similar to Bandura’s (1997) explanation of the role played by collective efficacy for social change, in which he argued “Effective action for social change requires merging diverse self-interests in support of common core values and goals” (Bandura, 1997, p. 522).
2.4.1 Team theory in organisational psychology.
In an effort to synthesise and integrate the various conceptualisations about collaboration, Bedwell et al. (2012) identified emerging themes in the extant literature dealing with teams and collaboration. They defined collaboration as an evolving process requiring two or more social entities (individuals or groups) to actively participate in joint activities in a reciprocal manner. They noted that collaboration is directed towards
a shared goal. When comparing the work of Bedwell et al. (2012) with other
collaboration definitions hitherto mentioned, it is apparent that collaboration can be conceived of as a social, goal directed process.
An examination of collaboration, particularly in the education context, should not proceed without consideration of the literature about teams, team function and performance, and the psychological dimensions of team behaviour and motivation. If collaboration is to be conceived of as a process, then ‘team’ connotes an entity. In work settings, or other organisational settings, teams are more than a collection of individuals who share a similar goal. In their meta-study of two hundred studies about teams, Cohen and Bailey (1997) provided the following definition of a team in an organisational setting: “[a] team is a collection of individuals who are interdependent in their tasks, who share responsibility for outcomes, who see themselves and who are seen by others as an intact social entity embedded in one or more larger social systems (for example, business unit or the corporation), and who manage their relationships across
organizational boundaries” (Cohen & Bailey, 1997, p. 241). This definition is useful in that it contains observable criteria that can be applied to collectives to determine if they are, in fact, teams. For example, a group of teachers who teach the same subject to different students in a high school setting may not necessarily be a team, according to this definition. They may not be interdependent, and they may not share responsibility for the outcome of their work. Even though teachers may identify closely with other teachers of the same discipline and be recognised as an ‘in-group’ by themselves and others, the lack of interdependence fails the definition.
Cohen and Bailey (1997) identified four types of teams: work teams, parallel teams, project teams and management teams; each with somewhat different structures
and foci. From their review of the literature, Cohen and Bailey (1997) provided three dimensions by which team effectiveness may be measured. These are quantity and quality of outputs (performance effectiveness), member attitudes, and behavioural outcomes. These criteria for effectiveness are sufficiently general as to have broad applicability.
Some of the attempts to create theoretical systems for describing teams have used SCT as a conceptual framework. Ilgen, Hollenbeck, Johnson, and Jundt (2005, p. 519) acknowledged the complexity of team environments, noting that knowledge, motivations and beliefs are at once both “inputs and processes in a developmental sequence that impacts team performance.” Mathieu et al. (2008), having reviewed the literature about teams described the progress from an input-process-output framework (McGrath & Altman, 1966) to a more complex framework including multiple layers of inputs, mediating forces, iteration and outcomes. This conceptual structure for teams and teamwork (Figure 3) was created by Mathieu et al. (2008), by synthesising the wealth of literature that had followed McGrath’s (1966) early work. This structure sought to account for the multivariate nature of team performance and effectiveness. Mathieu et al., (2008) were concerned that previous models of team effectiveness simplified the processes by which teams produced outcomes. In Figure 3, members of teams exist, influence and are influenced by the team and organisational context. The mediators of team function include processes as well as emergent states, which captures psychosocial and collective processes that become manifest in the midst of the team’s functioning. The outcome stage feeds back into the mediators, and indirectly to the team context, the organisational context and the members. This iterative process are episodic cycles which can shape the team’s effectiveness over time. The ongoing development of
the team is the cumulative effect of each episodic cycle. Such a framework illustrates the reciprocal relationship between the team members, their context and the emergent behaviours and states of the team.
The framework provided by Mathieu et al. (2008) captures time as a variable which influences not only the outputs, but also the emergent states of the team. For example, as team members undertake their tasks over time, they may experience mastery, they may undergo changes in their affective states or may be further impacted upon by environmental factors.
Figure 3. Model of Team Effectiveness (Mathieu et al., 2008).
González, Burke, Santuzzi, and Bradley (2003) sought to identify and analyse mediating states and processes in teams by considering the role of, and relationship between three key mediators in project-based, distance learning teams. These variables were task cohesion (the degree to which group members were attracted to and
committed to the task), interpersonal attraction (the degree to which group members felt a sense of cohesion and mutuality with the group) and collective efficacy. They labelled
the combination of task cohesion and interpersonal attractiveness ‘group cohesion’. Each of these was then examined in their relationship to team performance and effectiveness. González et al. (2003) synthesised earlier work on teams to define collaboration as the demonstration of effort by individuals and facilitation of team and peer performances to achieve a shared goal to an agreed standard. The authors were particularly concerned to identify the temporal relationship between group cohesion and collective efficacy. Their study of project groups engaged in distance learning found that collective efficacy beliefs were a solid predictor of both task cohesion (r = .70) and interpersonal attraction (r = .74). By conducting path analysis, the authors were able to speculate that collective efficacy was antecedent to group cohesion. Such strong
correlations point to the important role played by collective efficacy in collaboration, as well as the importance of accounting for the social characteristics of teams when
investigating team processes and performance.
Salas, Vessey, and Estrada (2015) developed a framework for examining the role played by cohesion when teams are part of a multiteam system (MTS). An MTS
“represents a network of distinct yet interdependent component teams, whose goals and efforts combine to achieve a superordinate objective” (Salas et al., 2015, p. 27). The authors describe how the work of an MTS requires the teams within the system to work synergistically to achieve a goal that is greater than the sum of the outputs from
individual teams. Faculty or subject teams working within schools could meet these criteria. Salas et al. (2015) examined the intra-team and inter-team processes that impact on the effectiveness of the MTS, with a particular focus on interdependence,
within and between teams indicates that the processes of cohesion, coordination and interdependence at both levels are requisite for an effective MTS (Salas et al., 2015).
2.4.2 Collaboration and team work in school contexts.
In the field of education, collaboration has been identified as a key to school improvement (Chapman & Fullan, 2007; Fullan, Cuttress, & Kilcher, 2005). Fullan et al. (2005, p.55) argued that “developing a culture for learning involves a set of strategies designed for people to learn from each other (the knowledge dimension) and become collectively committed to improvement (the affective dimension)”. This aspect of school improvement has been seen as a potential obstacle for decades. Goodlad (1983), in a study of school culture and effectiveness, found “teachers tend to be isolated in their own classrooms, in control of what goes on there and satisfied with the situation as it is. They feel impotent to effect school-wide decisions, they do not wish to call upon resource people, they individually select their own inservice or post-credential college coursework” (p. 555). There is broad consensus in the literature that teachers working together are more effective in improving learning than teachers working in isolation (Butler, Lauscher, Jarvis-Selinger, & Beckingham, 2004; Chan & Fai Pang, 2006; Chapman & Fullan, 2007; Egodawatte, McDougall, & Stoilescu, 2011; Fullan et al., 2005; Lassonde, Israel, & Almasi, 2009; Leonard & Leonard, 2001). Tschannen-Moran, Uline, Woolfolk Hoy, and Mackley (2000) conducted a study of a school community which had implemented a broad program of collaboration among teachers. They found that when “teachers continue to collaborate with one another, they create a context in which existing beliefs and knowledge are challenged and, in some cases, transformed” (Tschannen-Moran et al., 2000, p. 268).
Leonard and Leonard (2001) having reviewed the literature isolated the
characteristics of group members they considered necessary for collaboration. These are clear purpose, valuing diversity, being trusting and trustworthy, and being selfless. There is strong alignment between these characteristics and the elements identified by ARACY (2013), particularly in terms of the requirement to relinquish individual interests to the extent required by collective purpose. Leonard and Leonard (2001) collected responses from 565 teachers in Canada to determine the extent to which collaboration was occurring in schools and to measure teachers’ beliefs about collaboration as a contributing factor in school and student success. They adapted Schein’s (1990) four dimensions of organisational culture (Schein, 1990) as the lens through which these characteristics were examined. The four dimensions identified by Schein are:
1. The nature of teacher collaborative activity. What are the types of activities and what models of discourse and cooperation characterise teachers’ collaborative work?
2. The nature of teacher relationships. How do teachers relate and
communicate? How are shared values identified and conflicts resolved? 3. The nature of school diversity. Are different and divergent views and opinions
valued and are critical voices valued?
4. The nature of time usage. How is time, as a resource, directed to the school’s mission and what proportion of time is dedicated to collaborative,
professional work?
In examining these dimensions, Leonard and Leonard (2001) asked about teachers’ perception of their current reality as well as their judgements about what
‘should be’ in a highly effective school. The results indicated a consistently lower rating for the current reality compared to the ideal assessment of a highly performing school. In essence, teachers responded that collaborative practice is desirable in schools, but they also reported lower ratings for the actual manifestation of such collaboration in their own contexts.
Brown and Poortman (2018) found that even in informal collaboration between teams of teachers working as professional learning communities, where there was less structure than in managed teams, there were positive outcomes for measures of
professional confidence and impact on student learning.
2.4.3 Professional learning communities as a structure for collaboration.
DuFour and Eaker (1998) combined elements of evidence based on professional learning and highly structured collaboration to create the model of Professional
Learning Community (PLC) which has become widespread in the United States and a range of other countries (Stoll & Seashore Louis, 2007). The Alberta Commission on Learning (2003) which contained recommendations for all of Canada’s schools