The following framework lists the different types of goals in a collaboration, along six different dimensions. Each dimension indicates something about the nature of the aim, and taken together, the dimensions provide a means of characterising aims.
It should be clear that managing aims in a collaboration is a challenge, but also that the framework begins to offer pointers as to how the challenges can be managed.
Level (also known as Ownership (internal))
- Collaboration level
- Organisation level
- Individual level
Origin (also known as Ownership (external))
- External stakeholders
- Non-members
Authenticity (also known as Genuineness)
- Genuine
- Pseudo
Relevance (also known as Routes to achievement)
- Collaboration dependent
- Collaboration independent
Content (also known as Focus)
- Collaborative process
- Substantive purpose
Overtness (also known as Explicitness)
- Explicit
- Unstated
- Hidden
It is important to remember that these different types of aims rarely exist independently. They are more likely to exist in a complex entanglement of other aims that are both real and imagined!
(Source: The Open University, 2012).
(Source: Huxham and Vangen, 2005).
