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Arab Open University

Short Tutor Marked Assignment (STMA)

MTA replacement

Academic Year 2019-2020 Semester: Second

Branch: LEBANON - BEIRUT Program: Business Administration
Course Title: Managing to Collaborate Course Code: B325
Student Name:
Student ID:170198
NOUR ISSAM MAJED
Section Number: 318 Tutor Name:DR ALFRED OSTA

Questions Q1 Q2
Total of 100%
Allocated Marks Weight 50 50
Mark

Word
Total
Count
Presentation (including PT3 (up to 10
Allocated Marks Criteria form) (up to 5 marks deduction)
(up to 5
marks marks
deduction) deduction)

Deductions Marks
Plagiarism
Deduction

Notes on plagiarism:
A. According to the Arab Open University By-laws, “the following acts represent cases of cheating and
Plagiarism: -
 Verbatim copying of printed material and submitting them as a full answer of the STMAs
 Verbatim copying of material from the Internet, including tables and graphics.
 Copying other students’ notes or reports.
 Using paid or unpaid material prepared for the student by individuals or firms.
B. Penalties for plagiarism ranges from failure in the STMA to expulsion from the university.

Declaration: I hereby declare that the submitted STMA is my own work and I have not copied any other person’s
work or plagiarized in any other form as specified above.
Student Signature
Tutor’s Feedback

Tutor Name: Tutor Signature: Date returned:

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Q1

All successful collaborations aim to achieve collaborative advantage; however this is not easily realized.
In this essay, bases and goals of a good collaboration will be discussed and when these goals might lead
for inertia. Collaboration is about organizations /bodies (agencies , industries , public private
partnerships …)ability to form effective – rewarding partnerships towards common aims / for mutual
benefits (such as press and wealthy class collaboration in collecting aids to help people affected by
covid-19). On the other hand the tendency for collaborative activities to be frustratingly slow to produce
output or uncomfortably conflict ridden the collaborated organizations go through inertia phase

There are six bases of collaborative advantage, as follows: Access to resources: when an association is
unable to achieve their goal with their own resources they collaborate with another association
(searching for human resource or budgeting, but most of them collaborates to get different supplies that
include skilled people and technology). For example OGERO‘s and the ministry of telecommunications
collaboration their objective for accessing to resources is enabling ICT sectors. Shared Risk:
Organizations collaborate because the consequences of failure on a project are too high for them to risk
taking it on alone so they share the risk (assuming the demand risk and recovering the investment from
user payment the only risk in OGERO’s collab). Efficiency: Governments have often seen private
organizations as being more efficient than public ones, and so he latter has promoted public-private
partnerships. There are 4 perspectives of Efficiency stems from the notion of economies of scale,
Efficiency related to outsourcing activities, Operational efficiency and the coordination. Coordination is
an essential component to accomplish productivity and it is the demonstration of arranging, influencing
diverse individuals or things to cooperate for an objective or impact to satisfy wanted objectives in an
association (public private partnership in our case). Learning: while coordinated efforts are set up to
seek after some joint action, some are made with the point of shared learning. Moral Imperative:
Collaboration is fundamental to ease any issues at the association, business, society, and national levels.

To achieve collaboration aims we need to relay on a set of goals that involves the development of a plan
to guide a group toward a goal. A superordinate goal appeals primarily to affect, goal setting is first and
foremost a cognitive variable. The purpose of goal is to make the superordinate goal concrete action
steps and to achieve all these, goals must be “SMART” and it is abbreviated as follows: Specific: defined
and clear(“One or more scalable data center facilities and infrastructure based on Tier 3 standard,
offering cloud infrastructure, platform and software services)Measurable: With specific criteria that
measure progress towards goal achievement ,Achievable: Attainable and not impossible to
achieve ,Realistic: Within reach plus relevant to the purpose and Timely: With a defined timeline,
including a starting and a target date(as mentioned:” Expected tender award: End of 2019”)

There are many ways in which goals go wild: they can narrow focus, motivate risk taking, lure people
into unethical behavior, inhibit learning, increase competition, and decrease intrinsic motivation which
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they can lead into harmful outcomes. At the same time, goals can inspire employees and improve
performance.

Goals focus attention so narrowly that people overlook other important features of a task. This intense
focus can blind people to important issues that appear unrelated to their goal (as in the case of Ford
employees who overlooked safety testing to rush the Pinto to market)

Too many goals: A related problem occurs when employees pursue multiple goals at one time. When
quantity and quality goals were both difficult, participants sacrificed quality to meet the quantity goals.
Goals that are easier to achieve and measure (such as quantity) may be given more attention than other
goals (such as quality) in a multi-goal situation.

Inappropriate Time Horizon: Even if goals are well set, the time horizon may be inappropriate. For
example, goals that emphasize immediate performance (e.g., this quarter’s profits) prompt managers to
engage in myopic, short-term behavior that harms the organization in the long run.

Proponents of goal setting claim that a positive linear relationship exists between the difficulty of a goal
and employee performance. Specifically, those goals should be set at the most challenging level to
inspire effort, commitment, and performance. This logic stretch goals also cause serious side-effects:
shifting risk attitudes, promoting unethical behavior, and triggering the psychological costs of goal
failure.

RISK TAKING: Goals harm negotiation performance by increasing risky behavior. Negotiators with goals
are more likely to reach an inefficient impasse than are negotiators who lack goals an excessive focus on
goals may have prompted the risk-taking behavior that lies at the root of many real-world disasters.
UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR: Goals narrow focus, such that employees may be less likely to recognize ethical
issues. Goals also induce employees to rationalize their unethical behavior and can corrupt
organizational cultures. Multiple safeguards may be necessary to ensure ethical behavior while attaining
goals (e.g., leaders as exemplars of ethical behavior, making the costs of cheating far greater than the
benefit, strong oversight).
CONSEQUENCES OF GOAL FAILURE: One problem embedded in stretch goals is the possibility that the
goal may not be reached. In negotiations for example, challenging goals can increase negotiation and
task performance, but decrease satisfaction with high-quality outcomes.
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Question 2

It is essential to have clear aims specified in collaborations progress .collabs aims exist in an
entanglement of other aims (real and imagined )and the interplay between them leads to a hard
achievements to collaborations purpose .

There are 6 dimensions of aims in collaborations as follows:

First the internal ownership which means that collaborations are enacted by individuals who are linked
to various organizations that form collaborations. here, organizations, individuals and collaborations
aims are related to the aspiration of collaborations members .Collaboration aims is about public
statement of the collaborated organization purpose and the willing to achieve acting alone and they
clarify the joint activity and they’re related to inter-organizational domain .Organizational aims are
statements related to the aspirations of each org involvement besides their hopes to gain and seek to
achieve for themselves .individual aims are statement related to the aspiration of individuals
involvement and may be related to career progression or personal causes . Unlike other aims, individual
aims do not count for (or relate to) an individual’s involvement in the collaboration.

Moving on the external ownership, two types of this dimension are related outside the collaboration
and they are external collaboration and non-member individual aims .in details, the external collab aims
exist where force is from external pressures are and related government policy ,external stakeholders .
Members of collaboration may be invited to enroll to these aims (in many situations they are imposed
consequently to collaborating partners. However non-member individual aims exist (even if they’re not
formally a part) where individual has strong stake or interest in collaboration. They usually don’t have
power to impose upon collaboration.

Third dimension genuineness is about clarifying achievements and their needs in order to satisfy others
and it is composed into two aims : genuine ones known as statements expressed through participants
about what they aspire to achieve by conversations or formal documents and the pseudo aims that may
exist purely to legitimize the existence of the collaboration as opposed to being a genuine
representation of the partners’ collaborative intent (pseudo aims can be at both individual and
organization aim level ).

Fourth dimension is routes of achievements: points that are to be accomplished by means of

coordinated effort, and those that an individual, an association or much cooperation can seek after
independently.

Next dimension is focus that is about in collaboration, aims can relate to collaborative process, as well
as to substantive purpose Collaborative process: They express the points that identify with the how of
collaborating. Substantive purpose: They allude basically to the aims that express of the collaborating.
Process aims: They are usually observed as a mean of accomplishing substantive ends and as
subordinate to the substantive collaboration aims. Process aims that are subordinate to the substantive
aims frequently fall in the external collaboration aims category (example: government arrangements)
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Process aims are not constantly positive in their purpose regarding collaboration. Imperceptible
items: the process of working together is seen by some parties as essential to the collaborative
advantage.

In explicitness dimension three components are recognized: explicit, unstated and hidden aims.
Numerous reasons why collaborative process and substantive purpose aims may be uncovered to other
participants same for organization aims that may be avoided from individuals in the same association
.aims are not clearly stated because of variable reasons : Deliberate concealing of aims , Complex
hierarchy of sub-aims stemming from individual and organizational members and constrained
opportunities to explore and explicit aims .in inexplicit aims stated there’s those intentionally unstated
and the deliberately unstated .

The negotiation process unfolds two parts: aim ownership and episodes. Aim Ownership: During
negotiation, each member of the group uses their knowledge and interpretation of what they take be
the aims of the organization .The dynamic of the negotiation process is highlighted and 10 episodes are
distinguished: First Cohesive group episodes The members of the group agreeing to take some kind of
collective action, in which they know their organizations would have no interest, And they fear that the
organization might veto the action and consider it as time wasting. Disinterested organization episodes:
members within the group act in ways are counter to intentions of an organization .Outlying individual
episode: the individual promote activities of the collaborative group but they may be can for personal
reasons .spying organization episodes: it is related to the collaboration done for the aim of spying.
Vetoing individual or vetoing organization episodes: occurs when individuals respond to a proposal
forward by others. Threatened organization episodes: This type of episode may be as well described as
an attempt by an organization to veto proposals put forward by others. Outlying organization episodes:
it involves one organization and its representative being out of line with the other members. Powerful
organization and pragmatic group episodes: This episode is driven by recognition on the part of the
representative of the powerful organization that their position allows them to take a directional lead
which will allow him or her to drive personal agendas because the group would naturally presume that
these reflect concerns of the powerful organization. Skeptical group or skeptical individual episodes:
They occur when there’s lack of commitment to the collaboration within the group. Imposed-upon
organization and imposed-upon group episodes: This type arises when collaborations are mandated
externally (government).

In conclusion clear managed and agreed aims are the will of collaboration success. Therefore a
framework of aims as well as episodes to allow process for negotiate partners’ intention