Collaborative alliances: moving from practice to theory
Article Abstract:
The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science presents two special issues on collaborative alliances that examine the contributions and limits of existing theories for explaining collaboration, and that clarify and expand our understanding of this phenomenon. In this introduction, the following major theoretical perspectives are applied to explain collaboration and collaborative alliances; resource dependence theory; corporate social performance/institutional economics theory; strategic management/social ecology theory; microeconomics theory; institutional/negotiated order theory; and political theory. The nine case research articles in the two special issues analyze a wide variety of collaborative alliances and provide unique insights. The articles' contributions, the levels of analysis they focus on, and the ways they address three broad issues of collaborative alliances - preconditions, process, and outcomes - are discussed. No single theoretical perspective provides an adequate foundation for a general theory of collaboration, but the articles point the way to the construction of such a theory. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0021-8863
Year: 1991
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Validity and applied social science research: a theoretical reassessment
Article Abstract:
This article describes how major transformations in organizational conditions - particularly the emerging dominance of transnational relationships and decline in the centrality of the nation-state - have made traditional concepts and applications of validity insufficient for addressing important social issues. Problems have arisen not just with the choice of means to ends, but also with the choice of the ends themselves. The author argues that applied social scientists should play a greater role in shaping the future by serving not merely as technical problem solvers, but also as developers of theoretical alternatives for the future. Applied social science methodology must also change to accommodate the criteria the author considers relevant to assessing the validity of proposed alternatives: objectives possibility and moral consequences. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Publication Name: Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Subject: Social sciences
ISSN: 0021-8863
Year: 1989
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