Theories of Collaboration?

January 27, 2007 4:39 PM

ResearchFilter: As part of my thesis work, I'm trying to understand current theories for cooperation and collaboration - what motivates collaborative behavior, what are the pitfalls of collaborative action, etc. I've come across a number of studies that look at a specific instances of collaboration, but very little when it comes to generalized theory. Wood and Gray's Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Collaboration has been helpful, but I could use a bit more. Suggestions appreciated!
posted by aladfar to Human Relations (11 answers total)

Response by poster: I just came across a number of decent journal articles that somehow escaped my notice a while back. Still, I could use some recommendations if any mefites are able to offer them.
posted by aladfar at 5:03 PM on January 27, 2007

try "the evolution of cooperation" by robert axelrod
posted by paradroid at 5:22 PM on January 27, 2007

In Communication, Collective Action is discussed a lot by Flanagin and Metzger and Stohl. Check this article.
posted by k8t at 5:57 PM on January 27, 2007

There is a huge literature on cooperative behavior and collaboration in the subfield of AI called "multi-agent systems". There is also quite a bit of related literature in branches of psychology and economics that deal with game theory. For instance, googling for multi-agent collaboration on google scholar gets a ton of results. I only did this stuff as an undergrad, several years ago (here, their web site is pretty good and might be useful), so I don't really have any specific suggestions, but the literature is vast enough and technical enough that you probably want to find some kind of literature review. Or someone at your school who works on this stuff and is willing to talk to you.
posted by advil at 6:58 PM on January 27, 2007

I meant to write "philosophy" instead of "psychology", though undoubtedly there are psychologists who work on game theory also.
posted by advil at 6:59 PM on January 27, 2007

I just ordered a copy of Creative Collaboration by Vera John-Steiner. It looks promising, though I haven't received it yet.

John-Steiner grounds her approach in the theoretical work of L. S. Vygotsky, illustrating how creative thought and collaboration occurs within a social-historical context. This social-historical view interprets creative activities as social and the construction of knowledge as "embedded in the cultural and historical milieu in which it arises" (2000, p. 5). Challenging the view of cognition as in individualized process, she characterizes thinking and creativity as a social process that can involve intense and prolonged engagement and interaction.

(from the above-linked review)
posted by moonmilk at 7:29 PM on January 27, 2007

Outside of journal articles written about collaboration theory, I don't think that there's any better place to watch collaboration theories in the wild than the open source movement.

Look at books and articles written about the beginnings of the open-source movement, especially Linux Torvalds' autobiography. The Cathedral and the Bazaar is available onlne, as well as in dead-tree form.
posted by SpecialK at 7:53 PM on January 27, 2007

I assume that you already have articles on the Prisoner's dilemma and Trivers' work on the evolution of reciprocal altruism, but I thought I would mention it anyway.

A good introduction to game theory is provided by Chapter 11 of the text Behavioral Ecology

Good luck!
posted by intoxicate at 9:42 PM on January 27, 2007

Could you be a little more specific about what angle you are looking at collaborative behaviour from? For instance, economists, anthropologists, and evolutionary psychologists all understand collaborative behaviour pretty differently.

If you are interested in evolution and/or animal models, then Primate Paradigms might be useful. Although it is organized around sex difference, it has a lot to say about theories of behaviour, and sex roles and cooperation/collaboration are pretty wrapped up together in such theories.

In the social sciences, James Scott has done a lot on peasant resistance (ie. collaborative behaviour) from a "rational actor" position. Whether or not you agree with his theories, they've had a huge impact across disciplines, so he's worth reading.

I'd happily suggest some stuff from anthropology, but since issues of cooperation/collaboration are so fundamental to the discipline, I feel like pretty much everything I'm reading has something to do with the broad topic. If you are interested in some anthropological texts, narrow it down for me, and I'll see what I can do in terms of specifics. So, for instance, what scale are you interested in: large like nations; medium like extended kin groups or peasant revolutions or international collaborative software development; small like personal interactions or PTA-sized groups? What time scale: evolutionary; historical; current? What geo-political group: U.S; "the West"; cross-cultural; U.S./"Western" sub-cultural? To a lesser degree, it might be helpful to know what type of cooperation you are interested in: survival/livelihood; political; "against self-interest" or "altruistic"?

I understand that you want a general theory, but I think narrowing "cooperation" down a bit could allow you to delve into mid-level theories (i.e. ones that can explain a large swath of behaviours, but that are not fully divorced from particularities of time, space, and circumstance), which could be productive for your research in and of themselves, and could also provide tools for checking on the viability of any more general theories that you find (because the general theory should be able to account for what the specific theories account for).
posted by carmen at 8:45 AM on January 28, 2007

If you mean cooperation amongst animals in general, rather than specifically human collaboration, then Lee Dugatkin, "Cooperation Amongst Animals" (Oxford University Press, 1997) is good both for general theories and for its range of examples.
posted by Jabberwocky at 2:50 PM on January 28, 2007

Response by poster: Thank you all for the suggestsions, I've just read through Axelrod's book and the Flanagin and Metzger and Stohl article is on deck.

What I'm after are some general theories regarding n-person collaboration. I need something that goes beyond two party prisoners dilemma experiments as my research focuses on small group collaboration via wiki.

In any group project, there are those who carry more weight than others, etc. Slackers can bring the group down, control freaks can sour everyone, etc. I've yet to find many theoretical explanations for these behaviors other than the Grey and Wood piece which suggests that there simply isn't a unified theory out there.

This is fine, as it helps to justify the study I'm working on - an investigation of small group interactions via wiki might provide insight into these mechanisms of collaboration, etc. I'm just trying to track down a few more perspectives so I've a better foundation to work from.
posted by aladfar at 4:33 PM on January 28, 2007