Collaboration for the common good: An examination of internal and external adjustment

My dissertation consists of two studies (a field study conducted in two countries and an experiment) examining collaborations. Collaborations are temporary, organizationally independent entities that complete tasks such as building a house or making a film.;The field study addresses three questions with respect to collaboration adjustment. My first research question was "what are the most common challenges that collaborations face and how do collaborations adjust?" Qualitative analysis indicated that while collaborations in my sample faced more external challenges, their responses were overwhelmingly "internal" in nature. My second research question was "what are the key antecedents to adjustment?" I found that collaboration commitment is related to internal adjustment but not external adjustment. Additionally, my analysis suggests that when collaborations experience challenges related to the way they work together, heterogeneous collaborations may have an easier time making internal adjustments. My third research question was whether collaboration internal and external adjustments facilitate performance. I found some evidence that the extent to which internal challenges are experienced matters when examining the relationship between internal adjustment and performance, such that when there wasn't a significant challenge experienced, high levels of internal adjustment were detrimental to performance. I also found limited support for my hypothesis that external challenges matter when considering the relationship between external adjustment and performance.;The second study is an experiment designed to test whether collaborations could be trained to adjust to an external challenge in a way that was most conducive to enhancing performance. I found that those that were trained did respond by adjusting appropriately. However, I did not find any evidence that receiving the training resulted in collaborations making adjustments better suited to high performance than those who did not receive the training.;This research makes several contributions to theory and practice. For example, I suggest specific ways in which collaborations adjust. Further, preliminary analysis suggests that engaging extensively in more complex adjustment strategies may result in decreased performance. Hence, the complexity of the adjustment strategies in which collaborations engage and the extent to which they engage in each type of adjustment strategy may have an impact on performance.