Collaboration in Interorganizational Relations : A Conceptual Study of Collaboration

Background: Nowadays, organizations deal with many challenges in their external environment due to globalization, rapid technological advancement and increasing demand expectations. One way to face these challenges is by collaborating with other organizations. In this new globalized business world interorganizational relations are present everywhere. Nevertheless, from a theoretical perspective the field of interorganizational relations is saturated with terms and concepts. Nearly all aspects of interorganizational relations have been studied, having created a veritable conceptual swamp, idea abundance and vast fragmentation and this situation is a key rationale for the design of this study. Purpose: The purpose of these thesis is to develop a concept of collaboration in interorganizational relations, meaning that there is a need for a synthesized typology model in which collaboration forms can be classified. The purpose of the thesis is fulfilled by researching and answering beforehand defined research questions, namely (1) what are the motives and risks of interorganizational relations and how can they be clustered, (2) which themes/dimensions are used to differentiate between collaborations forms, and finally, (3) can our proposed model be used to classify those collaboration forms? Method: A qualitative directed content analysis was conducted. In the thesis, text from existing research from academic journals and books in the field of business administration were used as data. Conclusion: The result of this thesis is a tentative synthesized typology model of collaboration in the context of interorganizational relations. It incorporates motives and risks of collaboration and finally seven dimensions/themes of how collaboration forms can be classified.