A Local-State Government Spatial Data Sharing Partnership

Chapter 3 – Collaboration, Partnerships and the Government Environment
the strategic management perspective include resource dependency, reducing transaction
costs and spreading the financial risk (Child et al. 2005). Literature also identifies the
need to secure a “cultural fit” between co-operating partners so that they can work together
on the basis of trust and understanding. The theory therefore emphasises the importance of
partner selection in establishing an alliance rather than a selection based on a more
simplistic economic approach. It draws together the cultural organisation perspectives, the
strategic goals and the careful selection of partners in order to achieve successful
collaboration.
Game theory is concerned with predicting the outcomes of games between two or more
players (actors) whose interests are interconnected or interdependent. More specifically, it
is the strategies adopted by a player to a game and the impacts on the eventual outcomes
which are of interest to co-operative strategy. The dilemma that develops within two
person games (termed the Prisoner’s Dilemma by Albert Tucker) revolves around the
choice between cooperative and competitive strategies (Child et al. 2005). This process is
paralleled to real life strategies of co-operation where the decision initially is to co-operate
in order to gain an advantage in a marketplace. These decisions may change progressively
as the alliance develops and one or both actors may change from co-operation to
competition.
Axelrod (1997) identified that a better outcome is generally achieved through a process of
continued co-operation rather competition. The theory provides a useful perspective on
the tensions that exist between co-operation and competition and may be used as a general
predictor of outcomes. However, the theory is limited in a number of dimensions that
make it difficult to apply to co-operating organisations in real life situations. The
treatment of the organisations as individual actors does not adequately address the
complexity of organisations that exist in reality. In addition, many co-operative strategies
are accurately represented by a network of interactions where the decisions to co-operate
or to compete may not be so categorical.
3.2.5 Typologies / Models
Thompson (1967) identified that organisational technologies and environments are major
sources of organisational uncertainty. Through the process of collaboration a degree of
organisational interdependence is created. Thompson distinguished three ways in which
organisations may become dependent on each other. The first is pooled interdependence
where organisational units share a discrete contribution but are otherwise independent.
This form of interdependence could be a contribution of resources to a pool or in the case
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