Constellation, le dépôt institutionnel de l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi

Résumé

Inter-organizational collaboration is often viewed as a golden opportunity to improve performance. Yet, it can quickly turn into a nightmare. As we say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. While researchers focused on collaboration success factors, main problems have been overlooked. Therefore, this research aims to explore main problems in inter-organizational collaboration and best practices to overcome them. ACN was selected as a case study. Five semistructured interviews allowed us to identify three problems (inappropriate governance, opposite corporate cultures, difficult context) and one potential solution (external specialists). Results indicate that these problems are interrelated, and thus created a quicksand in which partners were trapped. Clearly, managers need to know how to escape from this nightmare.