The Architecture of Collaboration

Knowledge-intensive industries such as biotechnology, computers, microelectronics, and professional services have been the spawning ground for the innovative organization designs that are evolving today. In industries where knowledge is complex, growing, and widely diffused, the locus of innovation extends beyond the individual firm. To leverage such knowledge, many firms have opened up their value creation processes through use of various types of multiparty collaboration. This seminar will present a new theoretical framework for describing and explaining large-scale multiparty collaboration. Called the actor-oriented architectural scheme, it is composed of three elements: (1) actors who have the capabilities and values to self-organize; (b) commons where the actors accumulate and share resources; and (3) protocols, processes, and infrastructures that enable multi-actor collaboration.

Please RSVP to valerie.parker@nuigalway.ie

Biography
Professor Snow is a native Californian who has been at Penn State since 1974. During his career, he has taught students and executives in the United States and in more than 25 countries in Europe, Asia, and South America. He has been a visiting professor at The Amos Tuck School (Dartmouth College), Norwegian School of Management, and University of Oregon. Currently, he is a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a Visiting Researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center for Organizational Architecture at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Management and is listed in the Who’s Who in the Management Sciences, Great Writers on Organizations, and The IEBM Handbook of Management Thinking. During March-June 2012, he will be the Fulbright-Hall Chair in Entrepreneurship at the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Current Research
Professor Snow is currently working in two research areas: collaborative innovation and organization design. He will teach a course on innovation management at Vienna University in 2012 and will speak on the topic of collaborative innovation at universities in Finland, Russia, and other European countries. He is the Founding Co-Editor of a new open access journal, the Journal of Organization Design, and in that capacity he is performing a variety of activities to publish the inaugural issue in February 2012.

Please RSVP to Valerie.parker@nuigalway.ie

All Welcome!