Technology and Behavioural Dynamics

Abstract

Chapter 5 described partnering as joint production of public goods, and built a framework centred on collaboration technologies. This chapter applies the framework to three partnership types: (1) more is better partnerships (MBP) where contributions are simply added up; (2) expedient alliance partnerships (EAP) where actors combine complementary skills and resources to tackle a public goods problem; and (3) one for all partnerships (OAP) where results are best if one actor takes on the lion’s share of the contributions. The objective is to explore behavioural dynamics in these groups and to arrive at a set of concrete propositions to describe when partnerships are likely to fail or succeed.