Collaboration Quality

The purpose of this study was to examine and understand what collaboration quality is and how participants of a collaboration construct the term in their speech. The phenomenon was considered challenging due to the existence of a gap in both research and theory when in comes to addressing quality issues in terms of processes and interpersonal relationships within collaborations. Typically, the issue is addressed from a point of view that links the quality of a collaboration strictly to its outcomes. Our literature review suggested, that collaboration quality can not be precisely defined, unless the elements it is composed of are specified and described. The theoretical frameworks examined identified a total of 17 overlapping and strongly interrelated elements as determinants of collaboration quality. The data for our analysis was generated by 5 in depth interviews and additional observational notes and printed materials, and a social constructivist view was adopted during the two-leveled analysis. First, content analysis was used with the purpose of narrowing down the volume of data without loss of meaning, and then the resulted data was further analyzed with discourse analysis, resulting in the naming of five interpretative repertoires. Our empirical findings were consistent with our theoretical ones in that they both suggested that the answer to the question “what is collaboration quality?” will always be subjective, to some extent. We found, however, substantial differences between the theoretical and empirical perspective when it came to the viewpoint and basic assumptions from which the term was constructed, and minor alterations when it came to the elements it incorporated and the meanings associated to these elements. Asiasanat:Collaborations, Collaboration Qualit