Collaborative Governance

Collaborative Governance

Introduction

The IT community knew about Collaboration since the Web 2.0 which evolved around ideas that focused on user collaboration, sharing of user-generated content...

The Concept of collaborative governance could a logical evolution.

Collaborative Governance (CG) breaks barriers between the data keepers and consumers. It allows everyone within an organization to share the responsibility of securing enterprise data.  

CG allows Leadership to evolve to a shared ownership, shared power model where people have autonomy and are motivated and accountable.

What's Collaborative Governance:

Collaborative governance (CG) can be defined as: ‘the processes and structures of public policy decision making and management that engage people constructively across the boundaries of public agencies, levels of government, and/or the public, private and civic spheres in order to carry out a public purpose that could not otherwise be accomplished individual Organizations are often confronted to address challenging situations which requires them to respond to public problems and how these organizations have to work together in response to transnational problems"

Collaborative governance involves the government, community and private sectors communicating with each other and working together to achieve more than any one sector could achieve on its own

Collaborative Governance doesn't mean mis-management

Policy, management, and technological changes are required to create a high-functioning, cross-boundary capability necessary for cross-boundary data sharing as among the most complex, deep functional and institutional changes

Why do we need CG

• Collaborative Governance helps accelerating changes
• In Case of high Complexity
• When there's a need to integrate multiple Policies and Resources
• Policies overlaps

What does CG require

• Sponsor: to support finding the challenges to be addressed and to initiate the work in that sense
• Leader: the role of a leader here is to bring people (from diverse groups) together to work on a common challenge
• Forum: a venue (that is neutral) is required to provide and ensure skilled process management

Opportunities

Increase of Accountability

involving partners will co-develop accountability: monitoring, reporting

Provision of additional funding and Resources to projects

As there are more partners each will contribute funds and resources towards achieving the same goal

Address the failure of Top-Down policy

Vertical working relationship can be at time challenging and a more horizontal or symmetrical communication is privileged.

Have access to expertise other not available

Each partner will bring their expertise to solve challenging situations

Reduce the Shadow IT Phenomenon

Shadow IT in the Cloud era cost a lot of money and cause a lot of risks. Proper collaborative governance set policies reduce employee frustration and help them work with the provided tools.

Several Models of Collaborative Governance

1- Collaboration arrangement:

collaboration agreements and joint-venture agreements), which: a) involves a joint decision-making body to oversee joint services, b) involves funds flowing through one organization and then being transferred to other organizations, and c) could involve common directors across boards and/or common senior leaders across organizations.

2- Organizational alliance:

a) involves an alliance board that could take the form of a joint executive committee (drawn from the executive committees of each board, each of which has the delegated authority to bind their respective boards, but typically with each board retaining some reserve powers), mirror-image boards or boards meeting as ‘one board,’

b) involves shared decision-making, including a shared strategic plan (for in-scope services) and shared management of (common) resources,

c) involves funds flowing through one organization and then being transferred to other organizations

d) typically involves common management (i.e., one management team), and e) could involve a common employer;

3- One corporation

(i.e., amalgamation of organizations with assets transferred to an existing or new organization), which involves one board, one funding recipient, one management team and one employer, although separate sites or programs could use sub-brands (e.g., a primary-care office or hospital site); and

4- A Combinations of previous models

this could include a governance corporation with an accountable board overseeing other organizations, some of which: a) have a joint executive committee or joint board, b) are wholly owned subsidiaries, and c) are aligned and funded through a contract like a collaboration agreement (e.g., with a local municipal government that provides housing and broader human services, or with a corporation that provides services across a broader region, the province or the country).

Inter-dependent is the way forward for organizations in the digital world

Leaders in a collaborative setting:

• Set goals differently: goals in the case are impossible to achieve by one organization
• Communicate differently: They communicate their goals before having plans inviting others to co-create and to help
• Leadership style is different: how to see others in the organization and in the other ones

References:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0740624X22000430

https://northtorontooht.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/3.-Collaborative-Governance.pdf

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/centers/mrcbg/programs/cri/files/workingpaper_23_zadek_radovich.pdf

https://web.archive.org/web/20150420002444/http://www.policyconsensus.org/publicsolutions/ps_2.html