ETHICS OF COLLABORATION - Collaborative Computational Technologies for Biomedical Research - page 123

Griesel warns of the confusion in terminology when collaboration is used [3].
At least we can observe that a collaboration represents organized behavior of
a certain sort.
If the various terms above, such as team effort or partnership , are examined,
a more precise understanding of collaboration can be acquired. For instance,
“team effort implies competition” [3]. However, many collaborative efforts,
especially in science, are designed around cooperation without a sense of
vanquishing or “beating” others. Also, Griesel observes that collaboration is
“operational” in that it is has a fl uidity of process and governance and does
not ask the individual to place the team fi rst [3]. The popular sports directive,
“take one for the team,” suggests that a team player is somehow required to
set aside his or her interests for the good of the team. Collaborative activity
does not seem to have that rigidity if Griesel is correct.
Kagan [4] believed that cooperation was the fi rst step toward collaboration,
followed by the second step of coordinated action, and then ending in the most
complex level of collective organization, namely collaboration. Kagan said that
“ collaborations are defi ned as organizational and interorganizational struc-
tures where resources, power, and authority are shared and where people are
brought together to achieve common goals that could not be accomplished by
a single individual or organization” [4]. Kagan's view reformulates a long-
standing account of collective human structures. Years ago, Schein [5] observed
that “an organization is the rational coordination of the activities of a number
of people for the achievement of some common explicit purpose or goal,
through a division of labor and function and through a hierarchy of authority
and responsibility. ”
However, Kagan's view suggests shared power and authority [5]. Griesel
observes that the more complex stages of collaboration require participation
of members in the organization of ethical guidelines for the collaborative tasks,
in the selection of instruments, methods, and scientifi c procedures, and in the
development of the “ participatory design ” [3] . Collaboration built on Griesel ' s
observations requires shared decision making and permits the possibility of
redefi ning or reworking the project, mission, or activity in response to chang-
ing conditions. Implicit in this sort of collaboration is the notion that the
“common ground” of the collaborators be continually reviewed and reshaped
so as to serve the overarching goal or goals of the participants in the
collaboration.
Schein's view [5] is certainly more traditional in that it stresses a hierarchy.
Schein ' s position identifi es a “hierarchy of authority and responsibility.”
Implicit in Schein's notion of collaboration is that participants do not neces-
sarily meet as equals to achieve the tasks Griesel identifi es as necessary to a
collaboration, for example, organize together the ethical guidelines that will
determine conduct among the participants. As such, the analysis by Thagard
[6] is helpful. He argues “that there are at least four different levels of collabo-
ration, refl ecting the different backgrounds and roles of the collaborators.” He
identifi es the employer-employee collaboration, which he argues is the