The role of continuous innovation is imperative to creating and maintaining sustainablecommunities. The role of collaboration is also imperative to creating and maintainingsustainable communities. Researchers mean that the educational system should be an activeplayer in supporting government policies to promote local entrepreneurship and find it crucialto create collaborations among and within universities to achieve this. But what if the practiceof the solution is the complex phenomenon? The word “collaboration” is a multifaceted termthat has created a lot of ambiguities amongst organizations. This study therefore aimed tounravel the characteristics of inter-organizational collaboration between university-linkedinnovation organizations by studying the collaboration between two innovation organizationslinked to Malmö University. The outcome was depicted in a model as a suggestion to aframework of the collaborative efforts between university-linked innovation organizations.Whereas there are a number of pre-identified elements for successful collaboration, it wasfound that five distinct elements played a bigger role than others. These are committedmembers, access to resources, relationships & mutuality, diverse skillset and time& patience.These, alongside with a conflict-resolution strategy and a defined process map out thecornerstones of the suggested model.

The increase in the complexity of social and societal problems that even a large actor cannot solve alone has caused pressure on many sectors, organizations and entities making the need for collaboration to be more urgent. This is because collaboration enables merging financial resources, human resources, and expertise needed to tackle complex problems. However, the increased failure of collaborations requests greater consideration and investigation of the challenges in collaboration. The purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges in inter-organizational collaboration at management and employee level. To fulfill this purpose, inter-organizational collaboration towards open Skåne 2030 strategy was used as a case study. The empirical data showed that there are challenges in both the management and employee level in inter- organizational collaboration. Some of these challenges are similar for both levels while others are different. Further, the study also found that political influence is a major challenge in inter- organizational collaboration. The study makes a contribution to the adaptation of the Thomson and Perry (2006), model of collaboration process. The adapted model in the study serves to enlighten collaborators that challenges in inter-organizational collaboration are inter-linked.Keywords: Inter-organizational collaboration, collaboration process, management level, employee level.

The world’s linear economic system, operating under the make-use-dispose philosophy, creates heavy environmental issues such as resource depletion and exuberant waste creation. One industry that is strongly affiliated with these issues is the construction industry. Responsible for around 25% of global waste creation, the industry is in need of changing and circular initiatives such as waste-to-resource ones offer pathways to such a change towards sustainability. For the materialization of these initiatives, inter-organizational collaboration is an effective tool that needs to be strengthened within the industry. It has shown its ability to create sustainable business models that are more aligned with the principles of the circular economy, yet, further research into collaborative value creation is needed.   Therefore, this thesis investigates the processes of value creation in inter-organizational collaboration as well as how the value created can help facilitate waste-to-resource initiatives within the construction industry. A theoretical framework based on the Stakeholder Value Creation model and Collaborative Value Creation framework is being used to analyze empirical material stemming from semi-structured expert interviews with representatives of the construction industry. Based on the findings, the framework is adjusted by including additional value creating collaborative processes and enabling forces for the creation of waste-to-resource initiatives. Ultimately, this thesis lays out the processes creating value in inter-organizational collaboration within the construction industry as well as the waste-to-resource initiative enablers stemming from the different types of collaborative value. This is contributing to the theoretical knowledge of collaboration and value creation as well as allowing for practical application.

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Our built environment has the power to influence where we live and work, how we transport ourselves, how and what we consume and many other behaviors in our everyday lives, in other words, it has a significant impact on our global environment and economy. Given the notable need for more sustainable development of both the global environment and economy, sustainability has become a critical factor also in the area of urban development. With this as a backdrop, the construction industry and its many actors, such as clients, contractors and suppliers, that collectively drive urban development, play a significant role in creating sustainable development. Innovation is a cornerstone to achieve development, so also in the construction industry. However, with its many interrelated organizations, projects and actors, innovation inevitably becomes inter-organizational. From an urban development perspective, inter-organizational innovation will happen in a multi-project context where several construction projects, led and executed by different actors from different organizations, become interdependent and are therefore required to collaborate. In any construction project, the client holds a key position and has been identified as a critical supporter for successful innovation and collaboration. On the back of these dynamics, the purpose of this licentiate thesis is to explore clients’ role in a multi-project context where inter-organizational innovation is initiated to drive sustainable urban development. From a contingency perspective, the purpose of this study has been explored through a multiple-case study where coordinated construction logistics, during the study, has been identified as inter-organizational innovation. The study has shown that coordinated construction logistics, developed for a multi-project context, must be developed and implemented differently than in a single project or organization. In other words, coordinated construction logistics can take the form of different types of construction innovation. The construction clients, in this thesis the building developers, are identified as being important to support innovation and collaboration within and between parallel and sequential projects. The study has also shown that different clients behave differently when inter-organizational innovation is present; whilst some are proactive to achieve development, others are hesitant and less supportive for change. The findings suggest that long-term committed clients take a more proactive stand for innovation, for example, by including innovation in their procurement strategies and reflecting on how to best implement it in their projects. Additionally, in a multi-project context, the collaboration between clients is found to be important in order to successfully implement innovation, for example to align procurement strategies with the next-door neighbors and to create opportunities to communicate with each other. A theoretical contribution from this thesis is that coordinated construction logistics, which is often seen from a supply-chain management perspective, could be considered as inter-organizational innovation. This conclusion expands the understanding of the empirical phenomenon and its context. Furthermore, adding to the on-going discussion on clients as innovation supporters, their role as a potential innovation supporter is established in a multi-project perspective, but where differences between different types of clients must be taken into account. The multi-project context also implies an increased need for client collaboration, which is often informal, why the clients themselves need to handle all the aspects of collaboration. Tentative findings indicate that in this context time, spatiality, innovation and requirements will affect this collaboration. From a practical side, the findings show that initiating and implementing inter-organizational innovation requires understanding of the context, such as project objectives and the system. For clients and governments active in urban development, the thesis can guide the understanding of the importance of collaboration and choosing procurement strategy for inter-organizational innovation. / <p>QC 20180508</p>

This dissertation examines organizational level outcomes within a whole network--the national network of fusion centers. Fusion centers are state and local organizations that fuse threat-related intelligence and information by working with federal, state, and local law enforcement as well as other security partners in the public and private sectors. This research will ask why outcomes at the fusion center level vary within the network by exploring unique configurations of conditions at multiple levels of analysis. The results of the research will present evidence that suggests whole network effectiveness cannot be fully comprehended without first examining sub-network level impacts, such as the training or experience of analysts, organizational capacities, and the roles of relationships between network actors. This line of inquiry has ramifications for inter-organizational network theory building because it will demonstrate the individual importance of these factors, and how they interact with other factors at multiple levels within a network to influence outcomes. For practitioners in the domestic intelligence community this research will provide important insights and present paths taken by organizations in a national network to achieve a desired or undesired outcome. / Ph. D.

No / Despite the interest over recent years in the fragmentation of organizations and the development of contracting, little attention has been paid to the impact of the associated inter-organizational relationships on the internal organization of employment. Inter-organizational relations have been introduced primarily as a means of externalizing - and potentially rendering invisible - employment issues and employment relations. In a context where inter-organizational relationships appear to be growing in volume and diversity, this constitutes a significant gap in the literature that this paper in part aims to fill. The purpose of the paper is two-fold: to develop a framework for considering the internal and external organizational influences on employment and to apply this framework within a case study of a multi-client outsourcing call centre. We explore the interactions between internal objectives, client demands and the use of external contracting in relation to three dimensions of employment policy: managing the wage-effort bargain, managing flexibility and managing commitment and performance. It is the interplay between these factors in a dynamic context that provides, we suggest, the basis for a more general framework for considering human resource policy in permeable organizations.