In an article in the Journal of School Violence written by Dr. Rebecca Gajda, she analyzes the impact strategic alliances have on increasing school safety through prevention and response. An “inter-organizational collaboration” between law enforcement, mental heath providers, and schools is assessed through a national evaluation rubric (Strategic Alliance Performance Rubric) developed by the author (Gajda, 2006). She advocates for an “intentional” collaboration that: can be measured; relies on people; goes through a developmental process; and is clearly assessed by her national rubric (Gajda, 2006). The author applies her rubric to a strategic alliance, Project LINK, which successfully prevented a Columbine like massacre that three students were planing to execute at their Junior High in December 2000. Based on this case, she summarizes that “when school and community partners engage in the cultivation of inter-organizational collaboration - school violence prevention, intervention, and response efforts are greatly enhanced” (Gajda, 2006, p. 78).
In the readings this week, the theme focused on alliances in corporate, national and international settings. There are correlations between the corporate examples given and the social alliances shared by Gajda. For instance, Gulati’s own definition of “strategic alliances as voluntary arrangements between firms involving exchange, sharing, or co-development of products, technologies, or services” (Gulati, 1998, p.293) aligns social sector alliances where parties have to engage in this voluntary arrangement to maximize resources and increase effectiveness of services. In the case illustrated by Gajda, the inter-organizational collaborations evolved from the need to leverage “resources and capabilities beneficial to but not possessed by the other” as shared by Guliati in his description of open systems focused on resource procurement among social service agencies (Gulati, 1998, p. 299). The collaboration between law-enforcement, mental health providers, and schools was built upon “base alliances on concrete strategic complementarities that they have to offer each other” (Gulati, 1998, p. 301) to prevent and respond to school violence.
The relationship between these organizations is based on what Barney & Hansen (1994) describe as a weak form of trust “because its existence does not depend on the erection of contractual or other forms of exchange governance” (p. 177) and there are “limited opportunities for opportunism” (p. 177). In Gajda’s inter-organization collaboration, there is a shared goal to prevent and respond to school violence with pooled resources and expertise, so the chances for someone to “cheat” or “gain” at the expense of others is almost non-existent. Therefore, the transaction or coordination costs for this collaboration seems to be quite low (Guliati, 1998, p. 304) because neither party gains an economic “competitive advantage” (Barney & Hansen, 1994) instead through their good partnership they gain a “collaborative advantage” (Kanter, 1994, p. 96). In Gajda’s example there is also a sense that the individual players are “hard-core” trustworthy due to the “values, principles, and standards” (Barney & Hansen, 1994, p. 179) that they and the culture of their organizations exemplify. For instance, the likelihood that a police officer or school administrator is not trustworthy is very low given their respective professional paths, so although the relationship is based on a weak form of trust, the members collaborating seem to be trustworthy individuals coming from high trust professions.
Finally, a successful alliance depends on a strong framework and its results. Gajda uses a similar approach to the development of school violence prevention initiatives as the one used to manage alliances introduced by Gomes-Casseres (1993). Both approaches, if implemented properly, are supposed to lead to successful alliances and results.
Gajda’s Stages of Collaboration Development (p. 70)
|
Gomes-Casseres’ Managing Alliances in Stages (p. 11)
|
| 1. Assemble/Form | 1.Strategy formulation 2. Partner search |
| 2. Storm/Order | 3. Negotiation 4. Start up |
| 3. Norm/Perform | 5. Operation 6. Adjustments |
| 4. Transform/Adjourn |
Results, as stated by many of the authors, are measured in various ways. In some cases, the success is defined as purely financial while in others it is an investment in a relationship that will pay off, pure exchange of knowledge or in Gajda’s example preventing loss of life. The introduction of her Strategic Alliance Formative Assessment Rubric (SAFAR) aims to measure effectiveness of collaboration efforts by assessing qualitative and quantitative data collected from partner organizations. The “level of integration, purpose, strategies and tasks, leadership and decision-making and interpersonal and communication levels” are measured through SAFAR to assess the degree of “networking, cooperation, partnering, merging and unifying” that the strategic alliance has achieved (Gajda, 2006, p.72). This assessment includes all the “characteristics of effective inter-company relationships” outlined by Kanter (2010): “Individual excellence, importance, interdependence, investment, information, integration, institutionalization, and integrity” (p.100).
Performance or results metrics will vary depending on the purpose of the alliance, but it is clear from the readings that alliances are still struggling to clearly measure success (Guliat, 1998). In this case, Gadja was able to illustrate through SAFAR how Project LINK's strategic alliance prevented a massacre from taking place. The effective integration, communication and collaboration by all the partners prior to the arrests of the suspects and immediately after clearly showed the success of this strategic alliance in prevention and response to school violence.
References
Barney, J. B., & Hansen M.H. (1994). Trustworthiness as a source of competitive advantage. Strategic Management Journal, 15, 175-190.Gajda, R. (2006). Safe schools through strategic alliances. Journal of School Violence, 5:1, 63-80. Retrieved on February 16, 2012 from USC Libraries http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J202v05n01_05
Gomes-Casseres, B. (1993). Managing international alliances: Conceptual framework. Harvard Business School, pp.1-20.
Gulati, R. (1998). Alliances and networks. Strategic Management Journal, 19, 293-317.
Kanter, R. M. (2010). Collaborative advantage: The art of alliances. Harvard Business Review, pp.1-16.
Adriana, since the readings this week mainly focused on for-profit businesses, it was interesting to see those same concepts applied in a different way. Kanter (1994) wrote that alliances must yield benefits for all partners. Do you think that the benefit for all these organizations is the prevention of violence, or are there other motives as well?
ReplyDeleteGulati (1998) believed that networks are particularly important for alliance success. Is that true for this example? Did Gajda (2006) take them into account, even in an abstract way?
Hi Courtney,
ReplyDeleteMy background is in the non-profit and public sectors, so I usually try to apply what I learn to either the education or non-profit worlds.
Absolutely, the primary purpose of the strategic alliance shared by Gajda was to increase school safety. This encompasses prevention, intervention and response to an attempt or an act of violence. There are self-serving motives for each of the partners, such as maximizing resources, leveraging networks, and strengthening local partnerships to achieve a similar goal. But at the end of the day, their main goal in pooling resources, creating a social network, and collaborating through this safe schools alliance is to do exactly what they did in Latimer County. They developed a trusted alliance that allowed students to break their "code of silence" and alert law enforcement to the possibility of an attack (Gajda, (2006). The alliance immediately kicked into gear and other law enforcement, mental health personnel and school district staff opened all channels of communication to take immediate action and also respond to the needs of the larger community (providing mental health counseling, communication with the public, interaction with students and staff).
I believe that Gadja took into account the importance of networks through her focus on collaboration. For instance, through partner assessment they determined that in Project LINK's case," the school resources officers found that a 'network' was sufficient level of integration to have with the Nurse Home Visitation liaisons" (Gajda, 2006, p.76). This meant that a network in this case was more important to the success of the alliance than building the "structure (e.g. listserv, website, or sub-committee development)" and instead the resources saved were used to hire an additional school resources officer (Gadja, 2006, p.76). Her assumptions are based on the fact that strong alliances rely on collaboration and "collaboration is about people" (p.69) . These are the same people that form that networks necessary for successful inter-organizational alliances.
Adriana,
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued by the hard-core trust - characterized by the trustworthy nature of the organization - that you speak of (Barney & Hansen, 1994). It is ususally safe to assume that organizations,like the police force and school sadministration, are trustworthy since they are pillars in American society with a history of trustworthy actions. But, it seems like the mutually benefitial environment does not put this "hard-core test."
Changing topics: It got me to thinking about all the corruption we have seen from school administrations and police forces - like artificial test scores, embezzlement, etc. - in the last 10 years. Call me synical but I think most forms of hard-core trust can be tested to it's limits if the "price is right," so to speak. Human being are imperfect. Opportunity can test the trustworthy culture of most organizations.
Wow, I really got off topic. I enjoyed your post. Very well supported, as usual.
Hi Casey,
ReplyDeleteYou are not cynical, you just read the newspaper:) Based on Barney and Hansen's definition of trust, I'd have to say that this is a weak form of trust since the alliance has a common purpose and none of the parties have much to lose. You are right the "hard-core" trust inclusion was more of a side observation since I really do feel that their alliance has more of a weak form of trust.
Thanks - I really liked your post as well:)
Adriana
Adriana,
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting article highlighting how collaborative partnerships can be advantageous for corporations and communities. This make me reflect on if this noel by Gadja can be applied to not only school violence but youth violence overall. It seems like if police departments, communicate organizations and mental health providers viewed their work in a collaborative model, would there be a statistical decrease of youth violence in our country.
I really enjoyed your post an the analysis you in relating it to corporate collaborations.
Thanks,
~LaVenia