To understand the collaborative relationship in experimentation, we must first understand some of the differences between different relationship types. The different types of relationships between organizations can be defined with Brown and Keast’s (2003) 3C model, which includes cooperation, coordination, and collaboration. In the model cooperation is described as short-term relationship where participants are sharing information, space or referrals but not forming mutual goals. Communication is often informal. Coordination is known to have higher level of commitment. It is including shared strategy, which requires information and resource sharing, and joint decision-making.
Coordination relationship is known to be needed and established when organizations need alignment. Collaboration is thought to be from these three relationships the most stable and long-term solution. To create this tight relationship, it needs planning and defined communication channels between multiple departments. Collaboration process is taking more time as the relationship needs high level of trust between the members. This type of relationship is often dealing with complex social dilemmas, it is important for the parties to have mutual goal and sense of working together (Brown and Keast, 2003). The above-mentioned relationship types are considered to be foundation to network relations. This thesis is focusing on the collaboration relationship due to its level of commitment and social dilemma dealing nature.
Why do organizations collaborate then? Research has presented the motivation and mind-set for CE as a key factor for collaboration. Shared values, such as sustainability and sense of responsibility, organization culture and capabilities are seen as supporting factors (Brown et al., 2019; Konietzko, Bocken, & Hultink, 2020b). Motives, intrinsic and
extrinsic, for transitioning towards more sustainable business models are seen to arise from both personal and organizational levels and are perceived to be acting as triggers for collaboration. As the personal characteristics are seen important, also enthusiasm and persistency are emphasized as important factors for the experimentation (Brown et al., 2019). The identified motives for CBME collaboration are resource dependency, losing potential market share or competitiveness, finding suitable context to experiment and to operationalize circular business model (Aminoff, Valkokari & Kettunen, 2016; Brown et al., 2019). Research has also emphasized the importance of value creation experiments to create joint-consensus and to get pass prejudices when working together with stakeholders.
Experimentation with external stakeholders is known to intense the engagement with external and internal stakeholders and speeding up the start of the experimentation process (Bocken et al., 2018c). Early commitment and buy-ins from potential partners are considered important for the project proposal to be pursued further (Konietzko et al, 2020b).
Research has highlighted the importance of shared values when selecting possible partners for the collaboration as the lack of shared values is known to be causing conflicts between the participants, slowing down the progress and lower engagement level (Konietzko et al, 2020b). In addition, communication of the organization’s vision when engaging with external partners is been stressed. Alignment of individual and shared interests can help the partners to focus on the shared vision. In cases where collaboration parties have been able established a shared vision, the mutual goal and strategy setting have been noted to be easier to establish. To accomplish this, the collaboration often needs co-creative and organized processes (Brown et al., 2019; Konietzko et al, 2020b). Value creation experiments are perceived as a way to find joint consensus about the goal and to get pass possible prejudices when working together with stakeholders (Bocken et al., 2018c).
Trust is been emphasized as an essential part of the collaboration especially when talking about inter-organizational collaboration (Konietzko et al, 2020b). It is achieved by both formal and informal communication while created by fulfilling obligations, following expectations, and acting fairly. Due the multiple stakeholders, collaboration contracting is perceived challenging. The roles of the participants are important to define and possibly
redefine during the project. Misunderstandings about the roles can lead to possible overlaps or conflicts. Clear roles have also been noted preventing misplaced expectations (Brown et al., 2019; Konietzko et al, 2020b). Thus, the collaboration relationship is often requiring governance structure. Partners are needed to be evaluated as equals’ co creating assets and cannot be disciplined by each other (Konietzko et al, 2020b).
To understand the collaborative activities between organizations it is important to understand the drivers and barriers of circular oriented innovation (COI) (Table 1). The drivers and barriers can be divided into soft and hard dimensions, where soft are considered as social/cultural and institutional/regional, whereas hard are technical and market dimensions. The hard dimensions have been recognised to be important for the innovation design process whereas the soft dimensions are needed for the collaboration with stakeholders to operationalize the CMB’s (Brown et al., 2019).
Table 1: Hard and soft dimensions of the drivers and barriers related to COI (Brown et al., 2019, 5).
Research has perceived the BME to require more intense collaboration as the competition is known simultaneously been increasing due the soft cultural barriers. Organizations are known to aim often for fast wins before they are willing to start to change their corporate culture align with their partners due the competition setup (Brown et al., 2019). Based on Muzafer Sherif ‘s (1966) Realistic conflict theory, groups tend to create conflicts when they need to compete for resources (Sherif 1966 cited by Helkama et al., 2020). This tends to decrease the open innovativeness as knowledge and economical rewards want to be protected (Brown et al., 2019). To keep the participants committed and deliver expected contribution, the project needs to ensure fair value capture between the actors.
Commitment to cooperation is also seen to be ensured through early mutual gains (Konietzko et al, 2020b).
The figure below (Figure 4) has been conducted based on the literature review to describe the starting points for collaborative CBME. It is illustrating the collaborated literature and used as a foundation for this research.
Figure 4. Starting points for collaborative CBME based on prior literature (Bocken et al., 2018c, Brown et al., 2019 and Konietzko et al., 2020b).
3 METHODOLOGY